No matter how fun your next SteamPunk event is, chances are you’re going to be doing a lot of standing.  Daniel Valdez has the right idea.  He can sit down, pour himself drinks, and move about freely.  He’s not just wearing his technology, he’s making it work for him.

The Steampunk Professor Xavier Wheelchair by Daniel Valdez was made from a Victorian rocker from 1875, a Permobil C300 powered wheelchair, some pistons from a steelworks, an Arduino-based audio kit, and a drinks dispenser. You know, for the vodka and cranberry juice.

Via: Geekologie

Not to mention it’s a beautiful and creative piece of work.  Seriously, I want one.

Just when I had finished my therapy dealing with the unreasonable fear that mechanical men would someday destroy mankind…

A sinister and evil villainess of a scientist goes and creates this.  The Complete Mechanical Womb, disguised as SteamPunk art by the “artist” Porkshanks, clearly illustrates a failed prototype.  Just another experimental step in this woman’s diabolical plan to usurp human rule on Earth, and replace it with her own twisted vision of a perfect dystopia.

I approve…  🙂  I’d rather serve the Queen of the Damned (bite me Anne Rice, you traitorous bitch) under the rule of a benevolent leader such as El Presidente Porkshanks, than live another day under the current United States administration.  And with that statement, I will now end up on the Terror Watch list, and my boarding passes shall forever read “SSSS”.

It’s a SteamPunk, SteamPump, StinkPunk, some kind of comic or graphic novel…  Anyways, this guy’s trying his hand at making himself a SteamPunk style comic.  The website [is GONE] shows several panels, but the comic itself seems incomplete; it looks like an active work-in-progress.

However, I did enjoy watching the video below the panels that showed a time-lapse sequence of the creation process; quite amusing, especially when the artist changes his mind.  You can see a strong Anime influence as well, but what are we trying to say with “stinkpump”?  Somebody let me know when it’s done so I can do a proper WIN/FAIL review.  Good luck finding my e-mail address…

Greetings Professor…

This is cool no matter who you are.  Nice chess set with vacuum tubes that apparently light up when they are placed into the sockets on the board.  Very nice.  However, after a close look at the photos, it appears that LEDs are doing the actual illumination.  Well, I guess 20kV of filament voltage would burn the fingers.

This wonderful vacuum tube chess set, by maker Paul Fryer, actually has electricity running inside the board so that the tubes can draw power and glow as you move them from square to square. It is called, somewhat appropriately, Chess Set for Tesla, and Paul actually made seven sets last year.

From: WIRED

Now here’s how you do SteamPunk art, with imagination.  The technology is really at the edge of the story, and the story centers on the woman.  Looks like a space where a person really lives.  The attention to detail, all the little objects, and nick-nacks; it’s very well done.  This is a win.

She is trapped and hidden from the world. In this cozy, but gloomy room she has spend myriads of minutes that have turned out in one moment into single continuous thin cord. The only bond with the reality is that magic mirror on the wall. It shows her in some strange perspective everything that happens beyond this prison.

The robot is interesting, and I like the train.  The double boiler implies a double fire-box, and the catwalk on the side is a nice touch.  But a steam locomotive requires fuel and water, always pulled right behind the engine; I don’t see that here.  It must be somewhere.  While nobody is going to question the giant robot, I think most SteamPunk fans have a good idea how a steam train works.  Attention to detail is important to me.  The community demands to know where the fuel and water is!

The GOGBOT Festival in Enschede, NL – now with Nuclear Weapons!  I was searching for more SteamPunk related stuff to report on and I came across the GOGBOT Festival hosted by PlanetArt.  According to the description, it’s supposed to be some kind of SteamPunk related exhibition – well, it was in 2008.  I think they’re doing AtomPunk (Dutch version of AtomicPunk) in 2009, but they’re foreigners (Dutch) who think differently than us.  In any case, they are now clearly communist scumbags who are armed with a “Fat Man” type atomic weapon with a blast yield of 21-kilotons.

PLANETART presents the 5th edition of the GOGBOT festival in Enschede 18-21 September 2008.  More than 150 artists, performers, musicians and other creative spirits will show their talents at 10 locations of the free entrance expo’s. GOGBOT will show robotics, electronic music and audio art, virtual worlds, freakshows, inter-active installations, live-cinema, streetart, gaming, performances, keynote speakers, lectures, steampunk videoclips, DJ’s, VJ’s, parties, lots of steam, and  more….

It sounds like fun.  However, digging deeper, I looked into PlanetArt’s Photostream hosted on Flickr and found out what it’s really about.  I found bunny rabbit zombies, dead animals, a tree growing out a person’s butt, rape immortalized in bronze, Iraqi political statements, Hitler, Jihad memorabilia, and I kid you not – a naked guy with a blow-up sheep doll on his woo-hoo.  Looks like PlanetArt and/or the Dutch are a bunch of really sick people.  I personally recommend against going to the GOGBOT Festival; but if you go, let me know…

Jeff Miller entered this into a design contest, and apparently did nothing else with it (what a waste of talent).  It’s an absolutely beautiful and well-thought-out rendering of our dear Princess Leia.  However, the magazine cover is fake.  I looked up the issue and that’s not it; but, Leia wasn’t really SteamPunk either, so I’ll forgive the fakery.  Are those “plans to the Death Star” a euphemism?