OK, so I got bored with the Seminole Bingo project and decided to start working on an idea that I got from my son. We were talking about animation one day, and he mistakenly said the first Mickey Mouse flick was “Steampunk Willie”. Well, we kind of liked the concept, and the idea morphed into the Mouse as an inimical steampunk robot captain of a pirate airship. It still makes me giggle a bit. So I’ve started on the airship, and started again, and started a 3rd time. The view with the solid framework and weapons was my first shot, but I didn’t like the scale or the solid frames, so I took inspiration from the photo of the USS Akron structure and started on a more open girder framework for the airship. There’ll be weapons and engines and such, but I thought I’d throw my progress so far up for crits. It’ll be longer than this, but first I need to go back and simplify my girder mesh because it’s getting a bit unwieldy. Waaaay too many unnecessary vertices. Anyway, looking forward to feedback.
Cool! Cant wait to see it finished… btw, what exactly is steampunk?
Thanks! As for steampunk, well, I think it’s different things to different people. There’s another WIP thread of a female steampunk pilot, that’s IMHO a good example. I think of the book “The Difference Engine” by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling as an example. Think Victorian mechanical analog computers, all done up with ornate brass and glass and such. Some see it as an aesthetic, a Victorian or maybe Edwardian style applied to modern tech. I dunno. Willie himself will be an amalgam of early Mickey Mouse as a robot as he would have been built had they had the technology in 1900. We’ll see how it turns out, it’s already been a real learning experience for me. That’s a good thing!
The way I generally like to describe it is, image a combination of very elegant victorian styles (Scarlet Pimpernell) and industrial, mechanical objects. Thus you have these very elegant designs that’re made out of lots of rusticated, rough, and often steam-powered objects. You tend to see a lot of gears, pipes, etc.
Ok… I understand. Like the style from the movie Stardust, right?
Stardust is a fairly good example.
Steampunk - wow I learnt some today. I was never paying that word much attention till then.
I’d say an example of steampunk might be the anime movie steamboy, not sure.
However the your model is looking sweet ^^
This is what wikipedia has to say
Steampunk is a subgenre of fantasy and speculative fiction that came into prominence in the 1980s and early 1990s. The term denotes works set in an era or world where steam power is still widely used—usually the 19th century, and often set in Victorian era England—but with prominent elements of either science fiction or fantasy, such as fictional technological inventions like those found in the works of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne, or real technological developments like the computer occurring at an earlier date. Other examples of steampunk contain alternate history-style presentations of “the path not taken” of such technology as dirigibles or analog computers; these frequently are presented in an idealized light, or a presumption of functionality.
Steampunk is often associated with cyberpunk and shares a similar fanbase and theme of rebellion, but developed as a separate movement (though both have considerable influence on each other). Apart from time period and level of technological development, the main difference between cyberpunk and steampunk is that steampunk settings usually tend to be less obviously dystopian than cyberpunk, or lack dystopian elements entirely.
Various modern utilitarian objects have been modded by individual craftpersons into a pseudo-Victorian mechanical “steampunk” style, and a number of visual and musical artists have been described as steampunk.
Source (2008-10-16): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steampunk
But it is fairly free to interpretation and mixing of genres. I’d say as long as it looks victorian and has mechanical, steampowered parts it can be considered steampunk.
BTW take a look at the CGTalk Hardcore Modelling Challenge they are doing steampunk starwars this month.
Hi there.
Much kudos to your sons Steampunk Willie comment, kids are often quite brilliant little creatures (I was shaking with laughter while reading the post). I really like the idea and I’m looking forward to following this project, so I want to give you a link to a fella who’s been modifying some computer equipment into steampunk style. Hope it will inspire you.
http://steampunkworkshop.com/lcd.shtml
And as TheArtfulMoogle said; The movie “Steamboy” is well worth the watch.
Yea. I looked it up on wikipedia, too. I’ll try that on a future project probably…
Steampunk mixed with StarWars… hmm, interesting
Very few of the entries on the CGTalk thing seem to actually understand the concept of steampunk I’m afraid - they’re well modelled though. I suspect the coolest Star Wars-looking one’ll win
Yea. I checked it out, and found a stormtrooper with victorian-era gold accents on it; quite interesting.
Anyways, nice work Klaatueela, cant wait to see it finished.
Well, after a couple of weeks here’s another update. The main airframe is mostly done, I still need to do the extensions at the front for the control area and some weapons mounts and in the rear for the propeller, rudder, and elevator mounts. I’ve started on the engines, pretty rough yet but you’ll get the idea. Planning gearboxes for the rears and superchargers for the front, exhausts going straight up and out. Plenty to do yet, this one will keep me busy for a while. I’m probably not hewing too closely to the steampunk concept, butt we’ll see how that progresses.
Peace.
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Oh, BTW, thanks for the feedback, all y’all.
All crits and such welcome.
I would say good examples of steampunk would be the anime Last Exile and Full Metal Alchemist, or Miazaki’s Castle in the sky.
By the way, nice modeling!