I must be drawn (no pun intended) to concept art today – I found myself quite enamoured with the few Steampunk works of Ms Juzo-kun sent in link form by their friend, Ms Enui.  Apparently based on an idea had some time ago for a Steampunk world of magic and science, with Etherships somewhat of a cross between the ships in Space 1889 and the Last Exile, and featuring several Steampunk themed elementals.  There’s air, earth, fire, water, ether and lightning (seen above).  The lightning one is my personal favourite, especially as they’re supposed to be the more geeky ones, but in general I like the very tailored military style of the costumes.  I wonder what that device he has does.

Mr Huang sent a link to the upcoming MMORPG, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning.  Now, despite being an ex-Warhammer Fantasy player myself, I’d let this slip off my radar a little, but looking at the concept art for the Dwarves has brought it all back – and with rivets on!  There’s Dwarven steamtrains, ironclads, what looks like a fantasy Steampunk still, multiple Dwarven armour sets with spanners/wrenches and goggles aplenty and probably more that I’ve not yet found.

I do like some of the sets of armour, and most particularly the goggles, for some of the Dwarves – in fact, the one with the swivel lenses looks most interesting indeed!  No idea what the game will actually play like, of course, and I’ve burnt out a little on MMORPGs since SWG (not even WoW could hook its claws into me) but I will no doubt take a look at this when it emerges, and walk amongst the Dwarves to see what’s brass and shiny.  Spanner-holster shoulder pads though – why don’t we have those for day to day wear?

Mr Huang (Crabfu, who is most likely at Maker Faire today showing his wonderful contraptions), has the most interesting friends! Mr Walas constructs and mods model trains into things quite unique and beautiful – constructing a whole micro-mythology to place them within! Rogue County seems to be a 19th Century fictional part of an America that never was – with mines, good ol’ boys, gossiping school marms and far more importantly – a Victorian styled lost civilisation. Each train and figure (Mr Wallace also makes the figures to suit) have their own reasons – there’s Captain Nemo’s train/submarine (above) constructed after the Nautilus ‘misunderstanding’, Professor Emeritus and his niece out searching for the lost civilisation of Lemuria, cameos from both Mr Samuel Clemens and Mr Jules Verne, and simply tonnes (or tons) more!

What that man does with blue foam, mustard seeds and a hefty lick of paint puts a whole new perspective on what can be done with some ingenuity and inspiration! Please also take a look at the collaborative effort that he was part of to create Futuropolis – complete with ‘Verne Engine’ and a flying copper airship. More Steampunk than a brass bucket of goggles.

Mr J Roberts had a soft spot for the game, American McGee’s Alice – a violent variation on the tale of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Charles Dodgson (Lewis Caroll). In this variation, a broken Alice must return to a far darker Wonderland (though never exactly quite right in the first place) to do battle with the Queen. Of interest specifically to us, is that the Mad Hatter has partaken of far too much of the hatters curse, and has become obsessed with all things time and clockwork based.  Controlling an army of clockwork automatons, and experimenting on both the Dormouse and the March Hare, he is a terrible but cog-wealthy foe.

While not terribly Steampunk at all, I could not let this post go by without pointing out some lovely concept art for a future McGee project. The boy who went forth to learn fear, and The icky shop. The boy who went forth, was one of the stories I remember from my childhood, despite it being one of the less popular ones. Pushed into a pond indeed!

Both Crabfu and Worthstream wrote to point out an article at Gizmondo about the ‘News Brews’ coffee machine.  As you can see, it’s a lovely brass and copper device with delightful valves, rotating dispensers, pipes and flashing lights, and were that all it did, then it’d be a lovely thing on it’s own.  But what makes it even more stunning, is the bemusing quirkiness of the fact that it’s set up to ‘read’ an rss feed and blend the coffee depending on what coffee producing countries are mentioned in the news!

The thesis project of Mr Benjamin Brown, and with a video that just reeks of tongue in cheek, it’s obviously not taking itself seriously, but I very much like the wonderful take on the Steampunk look that Mr Brown went with.

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Thanks so much to Mr Payphone for pointing out the lovely music video above. For the song Je Suis Jalous (I Am Jealous) by Emily Loizeau, it shows an amusingly wicked tale involving a happy steam(punk?) fairground couple, and the retro-futurist, electric rocket sporting ‘other woman’. Such good fun!

I’d recommend the above, non-subtitled version for watching the lovely video, but should you want the somewhat distracting English subtitled version, it can be found here. Greatly appreciated, Mr Payphone!

Surely this is the height of polite gentlemen rivalry? Some may know of ‘the two Jakes’ – two of the most prolific Steampunk creators that share a first name, and a rivaly to outdo the other in terms of Steampunk creation. One of them, Mr Jake Von Slatt (he of the Steampunk keyboard fame) wrote to point out the above, stunning papercraft model (and free instructions for its construction) of the time travelling train from the end of Back to the Future III. Constructed by Doctor Emmett (Doc) Brown to stand in for the famous Delorean time machine, it’s a beautiful piece of Steampunk engineering – and possibly one of Mr Jake Hildebrandt’s (he of the Telecalculograph fame) favourite things.  Darn decent of you, Mr Von Slatt, to tell me about the model, knowing that your esteemed rival would see it.  chuckles

It’s a wonderful model by Cláudio Dias, and it’s one of several on his site.  The Delorean, several models from Alice in Wonderland and Batman – it seems that there’s some form of conversion software from 3d model to papercraft.  Stunning detail!

Via Neatorama, I saw the terrible beauty that is the Cauac Twins – a giant Tesla coil pair at the Coachella 2007 music festival (I believe BoingBoing did a big post about it, a while ago, though I may be mistaken).  40ft (12m) apart and 16ft (almost 5m) tall, they’re the largest twin Tesla coils in the world (apparently).

For more photographs to sigh over, see here, and for photographs of the construction, you’d be very well served on this page.  Oh what a stunning sight they must have been – long exposure photography or not, they’d still be a primal and exciting creation to observe!  Thank you Mr Tesla for these, one of the most Steampunk of legacies.

How many goggles are too many?  Alas, I may never know the answer to this, as my appetite seems impossibly voracious, so thank you to Mr Van Zoelen for sending word of his new goggles!  Created from a gas mask originally, they look simply marvelous and very sturdy indeed.  There’s even a little tale to go with them, a short window into the toil and sweat of a Steampunk inventor, looking forward to a nice, well deserved bath.

Mr Van Zoelen seems to have put his hand to many pastimes, however, and the goggles are just the most recent one – there’s papercraft, kitemaking, writing, programming and more.  As fans of Steampunk, the goggles and the Da Vinci Code ‘cryptex’ device replica are perhaps closest to our hearts.
Very well done, Mr Van Zoelen – and I’m very glad you found us!

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Crabfu’s latest creation!  (Danger – high pitched noise will either make you wince with memories of painful dentist visits, or cause you to grin at the sound of a turbine doing what it does best.)

This is Mr Huang’s Steam Turbine Tank, a new remote control beastie with a difference – instead of a piston engine, it uses a steam turbine.  Traditionally spurned for a lack of torque, Crabfu managed to get a respectable amount of oompf out of the new Jensen turbine.  It presented some challenges, but he was successful – the write up is interesting and enlightening.  Beautiful as always in Steampunk brass and valves, I’m unsure as to why it has a skull on it – I’m sure there’s a reason.  Well done, Mr Huang – a miniature engineering triumph!