Steampunk Canes

Here's a few of the canes I've made in the past.
Apart from the couple which have obviously got copper shafts they generally have hardwood shafts with a black finish.

My Steampunk "to do" List.

I'm going to be busy next week, I've got a lot of things waiting to modify and paint. The list right now consists of.
2 Cyberman helmets
2 Nerf Rebelle Charmed Duntless Blasters
1 Huntsman Boomstick
1 large pirate flintlock
1 Nerf Strongarm Blaster
3 Nerf Rebelle crossbows
1 Western revolver
Plus a couple of light up LED canes and a couple of Femur handle canes.
Makes me tired thinking about it. I seriously doubt that I'll get it all done in a week.

Steampunk Gun Commission

 This is a small steampunk pistol I was commissioned to make by a young lady. Mahogany and brass construction with her initials etched into a brass plate on one side and scroll work on the other side.

Steampunk Nerf Guns

I often paint Nerf guns to give them a more Steampunk appearance, I'm not a big Nerf gun fan but there are one or two which I really like in particular the Nerf Rebelle Charmed Dauntless Blaster. Quite a mouthful of a name, I really like the look of this one.

 The Rebelle range is very different from the other ranges in style and most noticeably the colours especially the pinks and purples, it's obviously aimed at the female market.

The Charmed Dauntless is particularly nice with it's quilted leather look grips and the scroll work on the body and the engraving on the barrels. It gives it a quite Victorian almost Art Nouveau look.  For some reason Hasbro decided not to do the ornamentation on the other side of the gun.


I don't do much in the way of modifying this gun it doesn't need it, the one thing I really don't like is the clunky cocking mechanism so I cut that off and replace it with a brass ring.

Apart from that its just the usually process of prepping and painting. If your a beginner I wrote a tutorial here

This is a Nerf Rebelle charmed dauntless Blaster

Here are three of my painted ones.

Chtulhu Statue

I do occasional commissions sometimes for props for photo shoots or theatre productions, awhile ago I was commissioned to make a statue for a stage version of The Call of Chtulhu.
It didn't need to be finely detailed obviously and I wanted to be very close to H P Lovecrafts original description. So I started by re-reading the story and getting a copy of the authors original sketch.
This is the description from the story. 

"The figure ... was between seven and eight inches in height, and of exquisitely artistic workmanship. It represented a monster of vaguely anthropoid outline, but with an octopus-like head whose face was a mass of feelers, a scaly, rubbery-looking body, prodigious claws on hind and fore feet, and long, narrow wings behind. This thing, which seemed instinct with a fearsome and unnatural malignancy, was of a somewhat bloated corpulence, and squatted evilly on a rectangular block or pedestal covered with undecipherable characters. The tips of the wings touched the back edge of the block, the seat occupied the centre, whilst the long, curved claws of the doubled-up, crouching hind legs gripped the front edge and extended a quarter of the way clown toward the bottom of the pedestal. The cephalopod head was bent forward, so that the ends of the facial feelers brushed the backs of huge fore paws which clasped the croucher's elevated knees. The aspect of the whole was abnormally life-like, "

 This is Lovecrafts sketch.

 I made the statue approximately the same dimensions as the description, it was constructed using what artist sometimes call "mixed media" it sounds better than scraps of wood, bit's of wire and paper mache!
It was painted with acrylic paints.

How To Paint A Steampunk Gun.

One of the easiest “Steampunk makes” is a gun modification, or even simpler a makeover paint job. Nerf guns are a firm favourite to work with but if it’s your first attempt then use something cheap like a water pistol. There are some great ray guns around. Have a look in discount shops for water pistols and charity shops or Thrift shops for old Nerf guns and other interesting toy guns, pirate flintlocks for instance.

This is the sort of gun I like, it's a Huntsman Boomstick. You can get them on amazon as well as other stores

Step one, remove all of the seams and the “made in china” and any other logos you don't want. Use a sharp knife blade or a files or fine abrasive paper. It’s not really necessary to dismantle the gun if it’s a simple one like a water pistol. If it's got lots of detailed areas it's probably best to disassemble it, take care especially with Nerf type guns, springs can shoot out and get lost. I take photos to make sure I can reassemble it correctly.

Next rub down the whole gun with fine steel wool. Now remove all of the dust and give the gun a coat of primer, I use acrylic primer in a spray can, when that's dry I give it a coat of matt black acrylic spray paint. Nothing expensive, look around the discount shops. Not everyone bothers with the primer.
If you haven’t got a garage or shed to paint in you’ll have to wait for a dry day and work outside. You should wear wear a face mask.  See the instructions on the can for drying times; it’s usually pretty quick for acrylic paint.

Now you can start painting the details in the colours of your choice. Acrylic paints are best for this, It's best to get some quality paints, the ones from Games Workshop are good but I don't like the snap tops they use these days, they're not good and the paints dry up quite quickly if not used. This is one time when cheap paints are usually not good enough, but I have found one or two cheap craft store paints which are good for some jobs. You'll have to try them to find out but if it's your first attempt at gun painting do yourself a favour and get good paints or it may not work as well as you'd like and you will be very sad.

Paints from Games Workshop and similar places may seem expensive for such small pots but as you’ll see you’ll have enough to paint a few guns. We’re going to use the “dry brush” technique for this part, if you’re painting large areas of a big gun then use a big soft brush about an inch across. Obviously for smaller details you’ll need smaller brushes, again not expensive ones; you’ll quickly ruin your best water colour brushes.

Take the colour of choice and stir it up, cocktail sticks are handy, put a very small amount of paint on the tip of the brush bristles, what you remove from the cocktail stick is more than enough, now brush it across a sheet of newspaper, remove almost all of the paint then carefully and gently brush the part of the gun you’re working on. If you see brush marks appear then you have too much paint on the brush. You want to see barely any paint appear on the gun, keep repeating until you have the effect you like, build up the paint slowly. It’s amazing how it makes the texture of the plastic pop out even though it looked smooth before. It can really look like metal rather than plastic.

Repeat the process on all the parts of the gun. That’s it; it’s simple but very effective. You can always add stuff to the gun, bits of wire, switches, anything you find that looks good. You can give the finished gun a spray coat of clear lacquer to help protect the paint from wear and tear. Matt lacquer looks best

This is the finished gun.

 

Steampunk Sawed Off Gun

Here's a recently finished gun, a slightly modified toy. I removed the small stock so it looks more like a hand held, and changed the clunky looking plastic cocking mechanism for a brass ring. The gun was de-seamed where necessary then primed with acrylic spray paint then sprayed with acrylic matt black then hand painted with acrylic paints. Finally it was given two coats of matt lacquer for protection. I used a Huntsman Boomstick as the starting point, they're available on Amazon as well as other stores.