Iron Man (2008 film) nominated for Art Directors Guild Award for Excellence in Production Design for a Fantasy Film
Favreau wanted the film to be believable by showing the construction of the Iron Man suit in its three stages. Stan Winston, a fan of the comic book, and his company, who Favreau worked with on Zathura, built metal and rubber versions of the armor. The Mark I design was intended to look like it was built from spare parts. The back is less armored than the front, because Stark would use his resources for a forward attack. It also foreshadows the design of Stane's armor. A single 41-kilogram (90 lb) version was built, causing concern when a stuntman fell over inside it, though both the stuntman and the suit were unscathed. The armor was also designed to have only its top half worn at times. Stan Winston Studios built a 3.0-metre (10 ft), 360-kilogram (800 lb) animatronic version of Iron Monger (Obadiah Stane), a name which Obadiah Stane calls Tony Stark and himself earlier in the film as a reference, but is never actually used for the suit itself in the film. The animatronic required five operators for the arm, and was built on a gimbal to simulate walking. A scale model was used for the shots of it being built. The Mark II resembles an airplane prototype, with visible flaps. Iron Man comic book artist Adi Granov designed the Mark III with illustrator Phil Saunders. Granov's designs were the primary inspiration for the film's, and he came on board the film after he recognized his work on Jon Favreau's MySpace page. Saunders streamlined Granov's concept art, making it stealthier and less cartoonish in its proportions, and also designed the War Machine armor, but it was "cut from the script about halfway through pre-production." He explained that the War Machine armor "was going to be called the Mark IV armor and would have had weaponized swap-out parts that would be worn over the original Mark III armor," and that it "would have been worn by Tony Stark in the final battle sequence."
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