Steampunk Beginnings

My friends and I are getting excited for this summer's CONvergence already. It's not until the beginning of July but we are getting things together and starting to plan already. I was introduced to the wonder and fun that is CONvergence back in 2007 and I haven't missed one since. It's 4 days of all the nerdly fun your geek mind can handle. There are panels, exhibitions, themed party rooms, dancing, costume parades, art shows, cinema, guest speakers, and of course every kind of gaming you can imagine, from old-fashioned pen and paper to MMORPG. Not to mention all the fun people you'll meet.

2010's theme was Villians, but 2011's theme is "A Celebration of Yesterday's Visions of Tomorrow". That means steampunk! The whole group is fired up about this year's costume ideas. Some of us have been planning since we went to bed the first night after 2010's CON ended. I had what I can only describe as a vision when I went to sleep that night.

Unfortunately, my vision came almost exactly a year too late. In some strange fugue state between sleep and active wakefulness, I came up with the almost complete and perfect plan to make myself into a gargoyle. Specifically, Demona from Disney's animated Gargoyles series.
 

Miraculously when I woke up the next morning, all of the plans and ideas were still burbling around in my head. For once I didn't wait and immediately put it all down on paper so I wouldn't forget.

But last year's theme was villians, not this year. So back to the drawing board? No way! A geek girl must be open-minded and creative at all times, so this calls for some adaptation. And really, I can use this to my advantage. I don't have to be Demona necessarily, and that opens up a lot of possibilities. I will need to adapt my steampunk costume idea (vague at this point, which is a helpful coincidence) so I can embrace both of that which is victorian and gargoyle-ness.

Meanwhile, my industrious (and self-admitedly bored) roommate went shopping today for supplies for our upcoming steampunk craft party. He is a person who can always think outside the box, and his creativity is inspiring. He went to Michael's, Home Depot, and Ax-Man (a surplus store common in the Twin Cities) and picked up all kinds of nifty stuff. I saw the possibilities and couldn't help but eagerly catalog his stuff. Luckily my roommate is a sweet and laid-back kind of person.

Note the two long cylindrical tubes that come apart and double as a flask! and the smaller

capsules that unscrew to hold small items of value.

And this stuff is just the beginning! That very night after tacos (I know that geekers need our sustenance so I keep them fed at my house) my roommate got to work building a steampunk compass. He dismantled a regular plastic compass and painted the outside a metallic bronze. Then he laid some tiny brass strips down on the bottom inside to form an N.

He also put a new pin through the bottom that would hold a tiny gear he bought in addition to the compass needle. He heated up the metal pin with a candle and melted it through the back of the plastic case.

After the plastic had cooled and hardened securely around the pin, he had to put the compass needle on it.

The he carefully placed the gear on the shaft.

Ta-da! A genuine home-made MacGuyver'd steampunk compass.

He still has to figure out a way to cover it so the gear will stay in place, but I'm confident he'll solve that riddle. This was just with a few hours' work, imagine what the bigger finished products will look like? I can't wait.

He hasn't just been busy buying likely-shaped things at home improvement stores however. He also bought a pair of stylish air-captain boots with weather guards and was kind enough to model for me.

I had boot-envy over his stylish footwear. Frustratingly, not all of the purchases turned out to be sound. The copper-colored liquid latex body paint was bad, both jars of it. It was chunky and you could see the rubber pieces in it.

Yuck!
But I think that one other buy has serious potential.

This mask is some serious equipment. When wearing it, I can barely hear him speak unless he uses the microphone. The battery pack he has at his side powers the circulation system and runs the microphone. It sucks a bit of juice, but my buddy is looking into battery replacement in hopes of fixing that problem. This lovely packs some serious filters as well--but don't worry, my friend got it for a steal. Hopefully at the end he'll be able to say that it looks so steampunk it shouldn't actually work, but surprisingly still does. He's a thrifty kind of guy that way and if anyone can do both, he can.

Seeing all this potential has got my mind feverishly spinning (ha ha) and I have a lot of half-formed ideas swirling around in there. I need to get to some stores and search for supplies in unlikely places and hit up a fabric store. The party is two weeks away and I will have a great opportunity to get some neat stuff built. I'm blessed that so many of my geek friends are hands-on and creative thinkers with experience in making things work. One of the friends attending loves film and has made some incredible sets and props for his movies. His expertise should be taken advantage of while it's here!

As things progress I will attempt to continue the chronicle. Look forward to future posts about our progress towards our very own steampunk CONvergence experience.