Every once in a while, it’s good to appreciate the beauty of some fine aerial pirate’s dirigible, so here goes! This lovely artwork was done by the talented artist(s) of Studio Octavia and called the Dragonship. More depictions of the Dragonship are available at the Studio’s website, where also much more wonderful imagery of other (sometimes steam-powered) devices may be appreciated!

Mr Lamb has informed me of his most interesting new journal, Strange Engines – a blog of the curious, surprising and downright unbelievable weapons and technology from the Civil War Era. Though a new site, the first page has already had me marvelling at the ingenuity of those souls – from steam guns to centrifugal cannons!

Most sound unbelievable, and there’s only the word of their creators (and thus salespeople) to go on, but it’s an facinating look at what was considered feasible, or desirable, in weapons at the time. Many thanks, and good luck, Mr Lamb!

Suzanne Rachel Forbes has worked as the courtroom artist for CBS Television, CNN and several newspapers, as the regular artist on DC ComicsStar Trek, The Original Series, as a book illustrator and as a portraitist. Her paintings, comic art and courtroom illustrations are in collections across the United States. Her current work focuses on traditional portraiture with a gothic flavor, as well as allegories and narrative portraits.

In the past year she has begun to produce vintage-style pinups using vintage-style pinups using pulp adventure and steampunk imagery. Her art is incredible, and her retro-futurist work is a perfect example of the genre. Her “Defending the Electronic Frontier “, a Steampunk Warrior Girl Painting to raise funds for the Electronic Frontier Foundation is a wonderful and insanely detailed painting that shows her talent and gift for art.

Space Captain Smith is a recently-published steampunk novel by a Mr Toby Frost about a Captain Isambard Smith in service of the British Space Empire! Bringing steampunk into outer space, Mr Frost throws our Captain Smith in peril and adventure as he seeks to rescue a psychic hippy maiden from a hippy world and bring her to the safety of Her Majesty’s Interstellar Imperium, which is evidently threatened by legions of bloodthirsty ant-men, religious lunatics, and other rum types!

Amidst all this insanty, Smith has only his trusted sidekicks to count upon: a rampaging alien with a literal take on life, and a renegade android with a secret past and a hitman on her tail. “Will our hero get the girl, ” asks Mr Frost at the fine Website which he maintains about his novel, “or will the ghastly Ghast do unspeakable things to him? Only one way to find out – brace yourself for a stirring tale of war, romance, tea and tiffin in Space Captain Smith.”

Such a small image, but such a lovely resourse! Ms. Mathewson alerted me to the fact that icon site Icon Buffet recently included a Steampunk set of icons (seen above) in their series of themed sets! Having been a (free) member of Icon Buffet for years, I really ought to have known this, but it had escaped me!

I am not sure, however, if people who haven’t been members for a while will be able to get this set automatically on joining, or if Icon Buffet will be charging for it (but it is possibly the first set of icons I’d ever pay for, I admit) but they come in BMPs, GIFs, Mac ICNs, PNGs, TIFFs, and ones for MACOSX. I remember there being quite the drive to create a Steampunk computer theme – these would do wonderfully.

I seem to have 150 ‘stamps’ on Icon Buffet, which means if you sign up, and ‘friend’ me (Tinkergirl), I can send this out 30 times (5 stamps a pop). Please comment below to ‘reserve’ a send, first come, first served, though the first 30 people should be able to then send them on to others if they like! A big cascade of Steampunk icons. Thank you, Ms Mathewson!