So, I've been kicking around with the idea of building steampunk garb for a while and bought a few pieces at Dragoncon this past year. I know, I'm a couple years late to the party, but there it is.
One thing I keep coming back to is the weaponry I see people carrying and what I should build/buy. I know I won't be happy if it look like a piece of shit, so most of the "eh, just buy a funny looking squirt gun and paint it" solutions won't work, and I can't seem to be happy with any concept I com up with using a NERF gun as a base (which seems to be a standard). I've seen some wonderful pieces of art made from wood, metal, and glass, but something always seemed off with them, and I think I've finally figured out what it is.
They're too damn complicated to ever have been reasonably created in any world.
Ok... I take that back. The folks dressed up as mad scientists get a pass, because, well, they're mad... and scientists/inventors/tinkerers often build things that aren't practical in the "real world" for a variety of reasons. But the hunters? the gun slingers? the air pirates? Would they rather have a big, clumsy firearm that has a good chance of breaking if dropped, hit with a stick, and/or have delicate gears exposed to the elements? Or would they rather have a rather simple and sturdy weapon like a
Colt Single Action Army or the
Henry Repeating Rifle?
Both existed during the period steampunk is loosely based on. Heck, I've been told that the time period was turn of the 20th century (I thought for a long time that it was closer to early-mid 19th). That means we get into the era of
John Moses Browning, often referred to as the patron saint of gun design by gun nuts. While his 1911, BAR, and Browning M2 .50 machine gun are probably just at the cut off point, many of his designs were created before or just after 1900. Heck, even his Auto-5 semi-auto shotgun was designed before the turn of the century.
I'm thinking that steampunk specific mods should be left specifically to things like scopes, and, if you do build a custom odd looking weapon, it should have a story explaining why standard arms wouldn't suffice. Remember, a firearm needs to be as simple as it can to do its job. Consider that the owner is usually going to clean and maintain it themselves and any failure is probably going to be disastrous due to the nature of the function of the tool.
Of course, one of the big questions is how would most conventions look upon someone with something like
this or
this strapped to their side or
this slung over their back with little to no modifcations.
There's also the fact that I may be missing something entirely, and I'm always open to discussion with someone more knowledgeable than I on the genre. Oh, and don't worry, I'm not going to go up to someone and say "your prop is very pretty, but stupid." I recognize hard work when I see it, and it's their costume, so it's their rules.
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naienko and I through that time, thank you. We wouldn't be where we are now without you. I don't know how we would have come out without you guys.
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looks like they would fly a bit better than the wooden chairs haha in reply to ladymerlin #
life is good, at the moment and overall #
