Lincoln Steampunking Part the Second

Greetings Gentle Readers,

More costuming from Lincoln, including the birth of a new league of superheroes!

The Revengers - From Right to Left, The Deadly Assassin Madame Kraken, Professor Cavor - Scientific Genius, and The Mistress of the Seas - Spurned Lover of that bastard Nemo......

The Revengers frequented numerous pubs throughout Lincoln, picking up gossip and rumours which enabled them to piece together whether Steampunk constituted a threat to Her Imperial Majesty, Queen Victoria.

Queen Victoria - Armed and Dangerous

During these 'investigations' some scurrilous types were encountered:

The Thieving Magpie - One for Sorrow

Allan Quatermain, complete with kilt

The Raven, Short but Deadly

Captain Smith of the First Airship Flotilla

Corporal Punishment of the Twelfth Burlesque Regiment, and AMIE (Automated Male Intimate Entertainer)

..and Juniper Jones, AKA The Dragonfly and her Jetpack

and finally, the dastardly Lord Elpuss, white slave trader and all-round Cad...

With such rogues abroad, it's no wonder Her Majesty turns to The Revengers for aid!

Revengers Dissemble!

Until next time.......

A Nerf is a Nerf.......Creating The Clockwork Rifle

Greetings Gentle Readers,

Just a quick post to illustrate how I created the Clockwork Rifle for my Dinosaur Hunter steampunk character.

These are the basic parts - everything but the black tubing came from charity shops - total price about £6. The gun is a Nerf Stockade. In the end I discarded the silver 'space' pistol as it didn't look right.

Stripped down and with added details - this was done with cogs, gears, bits from the bits box, and oddments from all round the house - if it looked right I stuck it on!

Spraying all the components in my state-of-the-art Spray Booth......Plasti-Kote primer first then metallic bronze.

All the bits were left to dry thoroughly for days.

Detail of the detailing (if you see what I mean).

The sight with details.

A view of the clockwork mechanism.

The sight, with teddy bear eye and added Verdigris.

The Toxin Injector (essential for bringing down the larger dinosaurs).

The finished gun, complete with further detailing and added strap.

The whole project was a labour of love, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I have been teaching myself leathercraft so I could create the strap, and I can now cut, shape and join leather in a variety of ways, so next stop: Holsters and Utility Pouches! People at Comic Con were very complimentary of the rifle (or Dolores, as I call her), so it was worth the effort.

Until next time.......

MCM Comic Con London 2016 - A Grand Day Out.

Greetings Gentle Readers,

We have been to... well you can probably guess by the title of this post!

It was a fantastic day - we met lots of lovely people with excellent costumes, saw lots of brilliant ideas we can use in our steampunk outfits, and bought a few little bits and pieces too, to enhance our existing costumes.

My Clockwork Rifle impressed the Police attending: 'Now that's a gun!' was one comment:

We spotted Hannah Spearitt, Chris Barrie, Robert LLewellyn, and Warwick Davies, but we were much more impressed by our fellow cosplayers:

The Excel was absolutely heaving with people, with something like half of them dressed-up to some degree or other. There was a dedicated Steampunk area with stalls and the regional heats of Tea Duelling, the finals of which will be decided in Lincoln this summer at The Asylum Steampunk Festival  - We are looking forward to that immensely! The tea-duelling however was tense, and the malted milk biscuits did not respond well to the rapidly cooling tea, leading to some intense staring between the contestants, attempting to out-psyche each other:

The heat was eventually won by the young lady on the right, with a terrifyingly-fast Nom that nearly saw her lose the 'cow' entirely! Splendid fun, and a worthy winner. The full rules for tea duelling, and details of its governing body can be found here.

We came away with a top hat for me:

and a lovely embroidered patch from Doctor Geof....

...and Artemis now has a delightful military-style jacket, suitable for use in several outfits as the need arises:

Finally I must stress that while there were many excellent outfits at Comic Con - some elaborate and huge, and some mind-bogglingly skimpy, there were far too many Jokers, Harley Quinns and Deadpools for my liking....

.....but I suppose people want to dress as their heroes.. There were also some costumes that perhaps shouldn't have seen the light of day but I will spare the blushes of the creators/wearers, and keep those pictures to myself! The steampunk community excelled themselves however....

.....and it was all in all a great day, tiring but immense fun. People were very complimentary about our humble efforts, and we were photographed many times, much to our surprise and delight. The Dinosaur Hunter and Madame Kraken will be modified ready for the next event, and we will continue to mess around with alternative outfits from alternative realities.

Until next time.......

The Dinosaur Hunter

Greetings Gentle Readers,

Forgive me for the lack of posting but real-life has been getting in the way of important stuff like our Steampunk costumes for Comic Con!

Here is my costume: The Dinosaur Hunter - a sort of sci-fi Allan Quatermain if you like.

If anyone is interested I will do a few posts on the creation of the Plasma Diffuser armband, and the Clockwork Rifle, but I may bore you! I've taken plenty of WIP pictures anyway. I look very serious but this is intense fun and I thoroughly recommend it to anyone with a snippet of imagination! This sums it up nicely for me:

Until next time.......