Thanos’ Gauntlet: Final Report (Both Parts)

I am a big fan of Marvel movies and wanted to make something that is from the movies. One of the more prominent characters in the recent films is the infamous villain, Thanos. He wears a gauntlet in which he can carry Infinity stones to which he can use to wipe out mass populations. This Gauntlet is shown throughout the final two films and is something I wanted to attempt making. Below is a visual representation of Thanos’ Gauntlet.

My vision for this project was not to create a movie level quality representation, but something that resembled the gauntlet in the films. The material I selected for this project was crafting foam which proved to be pretty difficult to work with and assemble in an ergonomic manner. What I had envisioned for this project turned out to be more difficult than expected. 

From my initial opinion of the aesthetics for this project I envisioned a mixture of a norse aesthetic and a space aesthetic. These aesthetics were envisioned to be accomplished through how I cut and assembled the foam, and by the paint and jewels I decided to use.

Prior to beginning the assembly of this project, I began by making preliminary sketches of my design. From these sketches represented below, I began making full scale base sketches of the Gauntlet based on the dimensions of my hand and forearm. From these dimensions, I made sketches of both the forearm and hand piece onto 1.00” thick crafting foam. From these sketches, I finally cut them from the crafting foam and began making full-scale “engraving” stencils. Once these stencils were made on paper, I transferred them to the same crafting foam and cut each of the stencils. All of these crafting foam pieces were cut using an Exacto knife. Below are the preliminary sketches made along with the timeline of the assembly process. 

Going deeper into the fabrication process however I began by making a generic Gauntlet “prototype”. After this, I began the final Gauntlet by forming the forearm piece to my forearm using elastic cloth and crafting glue. Once the glue was dried for the forearm component I began to form the hand component of the Gauntlet using the same method as the forearm. Once the glue was dried for the hand component I then assembled the base Gauntlet using elastic cloth and crafting glue again. From this, I glued all of my “engravings” to the Gauntlet and waited for the glue to dry yet again. The second to last step in my fabrication process was to paint the Gauntlet a metallic gold color. Once the paint dried I finally glued on the jewels and the Gauntlet was complete. Below is a visual representation of my fabrication process.

There were some complications in the fabrication process as well. The fingers of the Gauntlet were by far the most complicated component of this project. I tried many different formations of finger cut outs and different forming techniques, but could never succeed. For future iterations of this project more in depth research will be done to properly create the fingers. 

In my original plans I anticipated that I would be integrating LED ball lights at the bottom of each stone and having fingers on the final Gauntlet obviously. Given time and artistic talent constraints a completed Gauntlet could not be assembled. In terms of aesthetics, I think I made a good attempt at the norse aesthetic by making the “engravings” seem like woven metal. It was not very accurate however. In terms of the space aesthetic, I think that the way I painted the Gauntlet and the addition of the stones encapsulated that aesthetic well. For the functionality aspect of the project, I can move my wrist and arm freely. One fun part about this project is that I can still snap my fingers like Thanos did in the movie. In terms of what I am going to do now with the project, I may keep it or I may start over and take another go at a later date. Overall, this project really challenged my artistic abilities and made me really reconsider choosing this project at the beginning. Below are different views of the Gauntlet I was capable of making.

Image Sources:

Featured Image:  https://www.pinterest.com/pin/630644754056139606/ (from Pinterest)

Image 1:  https://marvelcinematicuniverse.fandom.com/wiki/Infinity_Gauntlet 

All other images were created by myself.