Relatively new reader Sengkelat wrote to tell me of a tradition that s/he and a group of friends participate every Easter – they build something around a theme that involves marshmallow bunnies – and then burn it all!  This year, the theme was robots.  Sengkelat was struck by the Steampunk bug and created the above, magnificient, cardboard crab vehicle!  Piloted by marshmallow bunnies (as well as grasping one in its claw), it’s an amazing piece of Steampunk creation – especially since it was always destined to burn.

More impressively, Sengkelat thoroughly documented construction, resulting form and the eventual burning on Flickr.  While the construction set is not quite tutorial in detail – it’s very close to one, detailing each step even down to what boxes gave their life so that the crab robot may live.  It is really rather an impressive piece of cardboard engineering (with small wooden axles, occasionally).  Very well done indeed, Sengkelat!

The good Dr. Fiddle pointed out the Wilesco Locomobile over at Hammacher (currently sold out) but there appears to be several places you can find this Wilesco engine, so not to worry.  It’s a lovely little engine though – so shiny and brassy, with a huge cog and a chain to drive it forwards (the above image shows it with the stack folded down).  Based on a farmers engine from around the 1900′s, it was used for threshing and such and could be horse drawn (poor horse) or go under its own steam at a whopping 2.5 miles an hour!  (Human walking speed average is 3mph, apparently *chuckles*)
Lovely thing, but the price seems to vary depending on where you look, so if you do intend to splash out on one, please shop around.  (Actually, I have to say, I like a great many of the engines on that Ministeam page.  How difficult it is to single out just one.)

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Glass is an oft forgotten stalwart of the Steampunk look (along with quartz), but the work that Andy Paiko does with glass, both one off sculptural and commercial pieces, serves to remind me just how Steampunk glass can be. From beautiful bell jars for placing items of sacred beauty or scientific wonder, to impractical glass chairs of stunning ornament, to the above glass seismograph – taking our feelings about delicacy and fragility and declaring them a feature, not a flaw. There’s an amazing collection of bell jars though, and I agree with the artist that:

“It seems that anything you venture to display behind glass instantly achieves the status of “sacred”.”

Also, do take a look at the pseudoelectrical devices – curious contraptions of glass and electricity under jars themselves and set to run off ultraviolet or infrared light (they feature Tesla coils, so it’s very much up our street, so to speak). Thank you greatly to Mr Greg who points out Mr Paiko’s work as a friend of a friend of the artist himself. Marvellous stuff!

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Mr Huang (Crabfu) returns to possibly the best loved robot that has ever graced our consciousness – R2D2 – and manages to make him/it even better with the addition of steam power and more appropriately Steampunk livery. He brings us, R2S2 (R2 Steam Too!) (page may be a little slow today).

The pictures are stunning, the video is lovely, I particularly like the paintwork change to brass and wood panelling – a very nice touch indeed. During the making of R2S2, Mr Huang was somewhat worried about insulation and the possibilities of melting the chassis, but as you can read on his page – he overcame that problem admirably. Thank you Mr Huang for letting Brass Goggles know when R2S2 was ready, and thank you also Mr Matty, Mr Prijosoesilo, Mr Charles and Mr Malaclypse for making sure this did not go unnoticed! Between this and the earlier Steampunk Star Wars offerings, I think it’s about time someone took it up and actually did a full Steampunk Star Wars comic or similar. Wonder if they’d get permission.

Oh now – these are wonderful and a perfect example of all that is good about Flash based animation!  Mr Sandorm sends word of a Japanese site called Iyasakado that has a large section called “Steel Fantasia”.  Featured there are no less than five wonderfully Steampunk flash animations:

• Commuters:  All’s fair in love, war, and getting that last seat on the morning commute!  Businessmen must be prepared for all out WAR to succeed – an airship and biplane filled battle metaphor for getting ahead in business.
• Usigaeru:  A heartwarming animation featuring a little mouse, an unexpected friend, and an amazing battle/chase scene with mechanised creatures galore!  Quite lovely, this one.
• Harunohi:  My personal favourite.  A student takes the cog-train to class, but falls asleep and takes an amazing journey through the sky-ocean!  Sweet and lighthearted.
• Two Legged Tank:  Completely war based this one.  From what I can tell (it’s quite dialog heavy) a batallion of walking tanks conceive of a strategy to take out a well fortified enemy tank.  Rather ‘People’s Steampunk’ this one.
• Ornithopter:  A journey across skies and sea, from one country to another, over borders and battles, this little ornithopter flies with just one mission.

As you can perhaps tell, my two favourites are the more lighthearted of the bunch – Harunohi and Usigaeru.  Not knowing Japanese, I’m afraid I cannot tell you any more about these, but they are lovely.  They may take a little while to load at first (being flash based) so do give them time.  Thank you so much, Mr Sandorm – you have very much put a smile on my face.

Oh dashing Mr Brownlee of Table of Malcontents – you have brought to my attention a real Steampunk modern hero, Mr Taiji Kozaki, Motion Picture Engineer. PingMag has a simply stunning interview with this most interesting of individuals – Mr Kozaki is Japan’s last Motion Picture Engineer – a job that has him running the projectors, playing the gramaphones and personally narrating the old silent movies. He has a deep abiding love for the older, analogue technology – Steampunk technology. In his own (albeit translated) words:

“For example, in the old days, everything used to be sturdy and long-lasting. But nowadays, the same things are made out of inexpensive materials such as plastic and all the articles are being mass-produced. You can certainly buy those products cheaply and easily, but they will break in no time. Then, because things are so cheap, people’s attitude towards them would become superficial: if things break, just buy another one. Such a way of thinking is so common in our contemporary society, and I have the feeling that our emotional attachment towards things is starting to wear off. It is as if the feeling of wanting to treasure something has a lot to do with being considerate to others too.”

Now this alone, his chosen path in life so far, would be enough to endear him to me as a Steampunk icon, but he part times as a “Steam Deliverer” – he will deliver hot tea to any location you should require it. The presentation of his tea delivery service is just fantastic, and that he made it himself is even better! Indeed, to top it all off, Mr Kozaki creates a great many lovely items – from custom cases for his projectors, to cog-embellished hourglasses.

My admiration knows no bounds, this gentleman is just marvelous, and certainly in my shortlist of Steampunk heroes. How nice it would be, however, to bring silent movie projection back as a hobby and performance art.

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Surely this is the only way to benchmark your difference engine – how well does it run when showing beautiful images of an airship?  Now, while I may scoff at the lack of air turbulence when there’s a rather large sea monster so very close, (and I was a little disapointed it wasn’t an Air Kraken) it is a very nice little piece of Steampunk video purely for pretty sake.

If you would like to see how well your own non-fruit-based difference engine would run such a scene, you can find the benchmark test here.  If however you’d much rather just see a far higher resolution sequence of the above, then there appears to be a download for it over here.  Mr Eric, I am in your debt for finding this – and I hope that the gremlins in your machine have been soundly evicted since.  (Or at the very least had their contracts re-examined).

Oh my goodness – I think that if I were not made of such stern stuff, I would have fainted clean away at the glorious Steampunk cacophony of mahogany, brass and decorative filigree.  It is a triunial Victorian magic lantern, and forgive me if I preach to the converted but I didn’t know before today what one actually was – a precursor to projectors, they functioned as visual entertainment and eductation devices before things like television and moving pictures.  They used limelight (a wonderfully Victorian means of bright illumination) to project through glass slides, and some had advanced ‘wipe’ capabilities (such as in biunial and triunial lanterns) to give the impression of animation.

There’s a very indepth page all about magic lanterns, the different kinds and examples of the slides here.  I particularly like the tinted photographic slide of an organ grinder, and the real character of a ferryman in this other slide.  Photographs and painted images (as well as combinations of both – photoshop predated) combined for educational, entertainment, and even advertising purposes.  While I didn’t get the link suggestion directly from Mr C.S., it was his link suggestion that took me down this merry road.  Wonderful, beautiful, magic lanterns.

Reading Nothing to do with Arbroath today, there was a post about a British couple who’ve just finished converting an old Land Rover into a replica Chitty Chitty Bang Bang!  Four years of effort made their dream come true from the rather unpromising beginnings of a rather plain, £100 vehicle, created because the lady above has been a fan of Chitty since she saw the film as a child, and her hardworking gentleman has made it real for her.  They plan to drive the vehicle on a four month fundraising trip from the UK to Australia, raising money for the Earl Mountbatten Hospice, Multiple Sclerosis Society and the World Wildlife Fund.  It just tickles me that one of the more Steampunk vehicles, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, has passed its MOT laughs And now, because I cannot help myself, links to clips from the film – the introduction (featuring the car heavily and the song of the title) and the breakfast scene (with the glorious breakfast contraption and a rather soppy song).  Be warned, both are tuneful in nature and depending on your situation and surroundings, you may want to turn them down.

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Mr Huang sent links featuring the Cruquius Machine – the largest Cornish engine surviving in the world (according to the site, at least – I have not yet gone around with a tape measure to check). Cornish engines were generally used for pumping water out of mines, but this particular engine is stunning in its enormity! At about 45 seconds into the video, you see an exterior shot of the building that houses it – and the huge arms rising the falling around it! Most impressive.

There’s so many beautiful photographs of the engine too – from schematics (stunning and baffling) to beautiful valve shots (ahem). This engine writ large on the surrounding landscape inspires me to think of multitudes of Steampunk buildings in graceful motion, like brick and iron jellyfish trying fruitlessly to rise up through the fluid air. Perhaps on the next stroke? (Bonus points too for the lovely iron spiral staircase in the video background.) Thanks, Crabfu!

[Edit:  Curses - embedding is disallowed.  Still, clicking on it will arrive you at the video in question.  My apologies (I didn't even know you could do that.)]