Adam Savage Inspects the Spacesuit from The Martian!

Adam Savage gets special access to one of the spacesuits from The Martian to study and document it for his personal replica project! Here’s Adam’s gleeful first impressions after opening the suit’s shipping crate and appreciate for some of the fine fabricated details seen in person. (Bring home The Martian, nominated for 7 Academy Awards®, on Blu-ray™, DVD & Digital HD today.)

Shot and edited by Joey Fameli

Comments (61)

61 thoughts on “Adam Savage Inspects the Spacesuit from The Martian!

  1. So great!

    I was hoping to build my own version of this suit (I have some of the purchaseble parts, plus I’ve learned to print, sculpt and cast better over the last few months.) So I hope you will be allowed to share the info on therpf 🙂

    It is because of Tested that I heard the audiobook and got allot of other people interested in it. Some read the book, som listened to it. We all went to the cinema to watch it 🙂

    I thought there would be a sale tie in,. So after the salespitch, I went “WHAT THE BLURAY IS OUT ALLREADY?” And then I realized I live in gobledegook-land and have to wait for about 20 days,. or rather 8. february.

  2. … In order to get my grubby lil paws on that I would have tattooed any kind of Fox promotional material anywhere they wanted on me.

  3. I love how a very simple “buy the movie” was all the was needed. Can’t wait to watch the series of you replicating the product.

  4. I can’t wait to see more about this suit.

    I don’t mind the sponsorship either, although I already picked up The Martian on blu-ray.

  5. Seeing Adam that giddy is awesome. Can’t wait for this series!

    I plan on getting the Ultra HD Blu-ray release. I don’t want/need a DVD copy so I’d rather wait for the version with Ultra HD, regular Blu-ray, and digital.

    … unless the rumors that Target will have the blu-ray for $10 next week end up being accurate

  6. It’s called 80/20: https://www.8020.net/

    Cool stuff, Amazon actually sells it as well. One of those companies that will send you a free catalog and there are a number of nationwide retailers that carry it. Watch out though! It gets expensive.

    Dull question, but does anyone know the name or manufacture of that Racking/frame the suit came with?

  7. Like the rest, I’m eager to see the final result! I see Mr. Savage has on an at Midnight t-shirt; and, I wanted to congratulate him on his appearance on the actual show! You did very well, sir; you even managed to hang in there with one of the champs, Ron Funches!!

  8. Loved the audio book. Liked the movie well enough (it had a few unforgivable technical gaffs.)
    The suit is really cool looking. My biggest problem with it, no neck ring! The suit to helmet seal is pure “movie magic” because someone apparently didn’t like the look of a neck ring. After the book I was hoping the movie wouldn’t compromise technical substance for visual appearance, but alas!
    Still, this will be an awesome build. I hope Tested will follow it. It will take a while. Maybe Adam should publish a book about it when he’s done. (I don’t mind the pitch for the DVD but I’ll wait for the extended cut that was originally promised, thank you very much.)

  9. Hahaha – awesome… I remember Adam’s reaction upon seeing the suit for the first time when he watched the trailer for the film – nice to see he’s able to realize the dream that sprang, fully formed, into his head in that moment. I look forward to the build!

  10. Advertising? On a Tested video? That’s it, unsubscribing.

    Seriously, though, that’s really awesome of Fox to send Adam a suit to fully document. I’m really excited for this series because that suit is gorgeous.

  11. WOOT! Jealous as heck, but I can’t wait to see the process.

    The RPF folks are all drooling in antici….

    …pation, especially Soulinertia, my favorite MARTIAN SUIT FANATIC!

  12. Absolutely wonderful camerawork, Joey! Those perfectly timed zooms and pans actually made me laugh out loud.

  13. Sweet! Let the studio know they sold at least one bluray because they lent the suit to you. I can’t wait to see all the delicious details on how you’ll replicate this awesome awesome suit.

    Also, Adam, offering up an annotated hand illustration of this suit would be a very powerful incentive to become a premium member. Just saying!

  14. Adam refers to “screen printed” allot. The few times I’ve tried screen printing the resolution isn’t that great, the ink is too thick, and it doesn’t flow evenly. I know there are more professional tools for printing on fabric, and it looks like this project includes a bit of it.

    I’d like to ask if by “screen printed” its more or of an industrial bubble-jet plotter, or if there is a way to get a nick repeated pattern onto the fabric with stuff found from home depot/office supplies. In you experience and during the course of this an future builds is there any help/advice I can get on getting a digital image onto fabric?

  15. This is awesome. I shared it right away. Now I just have to get the dvd of this movie… The Martian? Never heard of it.

    Have you guys screen matched it to the actor yet?

  16. It sounds like you have been dealing with some pretty low-fi screen printing.

    A good screen printer can print just about any image on any substrate.

    Once you know where to look, there are literally hundreds of types of inks in any viscosity and physical property you can imagine, some allowing for very high-resolution work. Screen printing is used for applications ranging from t-shirts and roadsigns to printed circuitry and growing human tissue.

    Printing the pattern on that suit is no problem for any local shirt-shop, though depending on the type of work they usually do they might need to special order ink that will flex/dry correctly on neoprene.

  17. I wish Hot Toys would do a Mark Watney 1/6 figure!

    If you’re a subscriber to this site, chances are you’ve already own a copy of Ridley’s The Martian and you read the book way back when Adam was raving about it.

    I wish there was a book about the making/design of the film though.

    Anyone know if this will happen?

  18. This is going to be amazing! I do have to ask, do you plan on trying to do as much as possible in house or will most of the work be outsourced to other makers? And if work is outsourced, any chance we can get a peek at those Makers as well?

  19. Screen matched to the actor? Norm confirmed that it is one of the hero Watney suits on This is Only a Test, and you can see the big ‘Watney’ decal on the helmet at 4:43 🙂

    I’m sure there were a at least a couple of hero Watney suits, so they could always match it to its scenes.

  20. Thanks for the information. It’s good to know there are various types of Ink available. The the name Frank posted I’ll be able to find more suppliers. In the mean time I also looked at printing to fabric using inkjet, and low cost A2 printers.

    In my work I usually use a local guy from printing posters as I can’t just justify the cost for the equipment. Will have to experiment more to see what technique i more cost effective for the result on an upcoming (and future) projects.

  21. Hmm… Shameless plug….Martian
    suit….. Shameless plug….. Martian suit….. YEAH shameless plug! Well worth
    it! Good job Adam! This will be a fun series.

  22. Plastisol inks are the most common type for fabric, there are a lot of different formulations out there, some are a lot more runny than others which generally means you can use a finer screen and thus hold more detail. Some plastisol inks are made for giving a dimensional look in one go, these are usually called “puff inks” and will swell significantly when curing. Other inks are designed to build thickness through printing multiple layers, this requires more skill.

    From a cost point of view, it is worth noting that all plastisol inks require heat-setting, otherwise they don’t actually cure. This generally means you need a couple of expensive pieces of equipment to successfully print any volume with plastisols. You need a flash-dryer to surface-cure inks between colours (these are a few hundred $), and a conveyor dryer (a cheap, electric one is a couple of grand) for the full cure once the printing is done.

    I have done final cure with a flash-dryer in a pinch, and some people even try to make do with a heat-gun… but there is a good chance the latter will result in an uneven and incomplete cure or that you’ll fry the fabric.

    If you need to print something for which plastisols are required, and especially if you are doing it on something like neoprene, the cheapest way to do it is by far to use a professional service.

  23. Brilliant! Loved Adam’s sponsor ad at the end.

    It was thanks to Tested that I read The Martian, really looking forward to seeing how this project progresses.

  24. All I heard was buy “The Martian” on DVD/BluRay and you too can own your very own martian spacesuit….am I wrong?

  25. This looks like it will be lots and lots of fun. Also, I love the condition that Fox attached to it, not that you wouldn’t have been encouraging people to get it anyway.

  26. This is so awesome! Can’t wait yo see more 🙂

    Any chance they will allow you guys to share your findings and reference material with the rest of us? 🙂

    And on the off chance that you guys can use some help 3D modeling some of the stuff that needs to be printed, give me a shout, I’m totally willing to help out where needed 🙂

  27. Haha! That endorsement was so sly. You struck a hell of a deal, Adam. I can’t wait to watch the rest of this series. It’s going to be a good year!

  28. Right? I’m sure Adam genuinely wants people to go out and buy the Blu-Ray because he likes the movie. No selling out involved.

  29. Has Fox given permission to do a full 3D scan of the suit? I know generally the detail of certain parts will be captured better with shots taken by hand, but if you have to hand it back over, a 3D scan would be great to make sure you have all the dimensions and such spot on.

  30. As I was watching this all I could keep saying was “Adam, you lucky bastard”. But this is why I have a membership is for videos like this. Can not wait for the build up and the respective videos of Adam’s The Martian spacesuit.

  31. You make it so easy to buy with that link, it’s on back order but it’s on the way 🙂 can’t wait to see the build.

  32. This is a match made in heaven. I can’t think of anyone more deserving of this opportunity. I will be closely watching this build. Can’t wait.

  33. To be fair, Adam and the others at Tested were already probably the best promotion team The Martian could have ever asked for:P

  34. Still loving how excited Adam gets during this.

    I know he has access to a handheld 3d scanner, he mentioned it in one of the videos about the Maltese Falcon. I still think that’d be the easiest way to get a basic model out for printing. Backed up with photos and sketches too for details that don’t show too well like very small details and finishing.

    Cant wait to see this progress through the year.

  35. Thanks for the detailed information. It is a great starting point for me to look into it further. It is also allot more involved and technical than my first impressions of simple ‘single colour on t-shirt’ that I’d been shown in Highschool. It does also sound like there are allot more options available now for varous results. Very exciting!

  36. Haha, as you can probably tell, I find it an interesting technique.

    I got started with awful hand-cut stencils and home-made screens in high-school, but have luckily graduated to slightly more advanced materials and tools over the last decade+ 🙂

  37. Smooth shill at the end there. Well done. haha.

    Really looking forward to future videos on this project. Looks like it will be quite an elaborate build.

  38. WOW! Incredible .As someone who loves space suits almost as much as Adam This is quite the treat.Looking forward to watching the development of you copy .I wish I lived in California and could see this in person .We have to work on another prop in the future so I can come over to the shop again!You know my mantra concerning movie props is Reference is everything.I wish I had had access to an original 2001 suit when making the copies we did for comic con this last spring.It was cool just going out to LACM to the Kubrick exhibit to see an original couldnt even begin to imagine how it would feel to touch an Icon like that .Your one lucky prop collector !

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