Steel Seas & Sky Machines: The Dieselpunk Art of Tony Snipes

Posted in Art, DieselPunk on July 7th, 2026 by Dr. Warthan
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Tony Snipes Aerocycle dieselpunk art book illustration

Somewhere in an alternate 1940s, Abraham Lincoln survives, the Reconstruction goes differently, and battleships take to the skies on the back of bold leaps in electricity, magnetism, and gravity. That is the premise baked into every rivet of Steel Seas & Sky Machines, the Portsmouth, Virginia exhibition showcasing the dieselpunk world of artist Tony Snipes and his fictional Portsmouth Aeroshipbuilding Co. Detailed sketches, 3-D models, and digital works, all locked in to an alt-history where the home front didn’t build Liberty Ships, it built Aerocycles and aeroships. The Doctor approves of this timeline.

If you missed the exhibition, Snipes has a live Kickstarter running right now for the Aerocycle Art Book & Model Kit, a product launch straight out of The Yard itself. An art book AND a model kit. In a dieselpunk universe. For actual money you can spend. This is the Omega7Red Formulae applied to “what if WWII-era industrial propaganda was awesome on purpose” and the result is exactly what you’d hope. Go back this thing. Nothing can beat old age and betrayal, but a tabletop Aerocycle might come close.

Via: The Steampunk Explorer

Thelomeris: City of Time

Posted in ClockPunk, DieselPunk on July 3rd, 2026 by Dr. Warthan
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Still or promotional image from Thelomeris showing the clockwork city aesthetic with cogwheels and dark industrial imagery

Somewhere between 2008 and the heat death of the universe, Hungarian director Balazs Hatvani has been building Thelomeris: a city of cogwheels and clocks where the citizens exist solely to feed the insatiable Clock Factory, and no one knows who built it or why. That is, objectively, the most on-brand premise I have encountered since I invented the Omega7Red Formulae. ClockPunk. DieselPunk. Noir. A city that is itself a machine that makes more machine. The Doctor approves so hard he pulled something.

And they got Mark Hamill to play the mysterious Stranger and serve as a script consultant. Luke Skywalker. The Joker. That Mark Hamill, in a brooding Eastern European clockwork dystopia. The Formula was applied by a Hungarian filmmaker with impeccable taste, and the result is either going to be extraordinary or the most beautiful catastrophe ever committed to green screen. Either way I win, because both outcomes are things I want to see. The film has been in development since 2008, which means it has been cooking longer than some of my laboratory assistants have been alive. Nothing can beat old age and betrayal, but apparently this movie is going to try.

A trailer exists. Hamill is credited. The city is dark, cold, and run entirely on clock-powered despair. Someone please get this thing released before the gears stop turning. Via: Screen Anarchy