A man dressed in a self-made Transformers costume has been parading his creation on the streets of New York. Peter Kokis, a 49-year-old former military pilot, made ‘Brooklyn Ironhide’ out of household items.

The idea came to Peter when he received an invitation to a party in 2008 where the theme was sea-based fancy dress. From there he began creating the Transformers costume with a combined look of a squid and Optimus Prime.

After a positive reception for his work, he decided to take it one stage further and create the full-on Optimus Prime replica. The result took 675 hours of creation time and weighs in at 164lbs.

He went on to create four Transformers costumes in total, including the rather fetching ‘Brooklyn Ironhide’.

Peter doesn’t always know exactly what he’s going to do in the planning stages but takes inspiration from objects he sees around him.

“No single part of any of my exoskeletons is particularly expensive, but all those little parts add up, even though many come from cheap discount stores. Sometimes I see something – a paper towel holder, a soap dish, contact lens case, whatever – and I immediately know what I want to do with it. Other times I see something and am struck by its interesting shape, and I buy it for some future use, or the part doesn’t work out so I throw it away”.

It took him 13 months to create ‘Brooklyn Ironhide’ and he still was less than happy with what he had accomplished. So he worked an additional 75 hours on his creation with the positive feedback on the final result, offering some well-deserved validation of his efforts.