One Year in the Steamworks!

It's hard to believe that it was around Christmas time of last year that I first started working on my steampunk project. At the time I thought I might sculpt a few figures that would go with an idea that I had rattling around for a while. I never expected to still be working on it a year later or for it to have completely taken over my blog. I certainly didn't expect to still be excited about working on it for the foreseeable future.

I was thinking about putting together some pictures of everything that I worked on over the last year but that seemed a little boring. So instead I decided that I'm going to paint up everything that I sculpted over the next month or so. I had been holding off on painting them because I was toying with the idea of making casts of some of them, but the more I pondered it the more I realized I'd rather just sculpt some new versions if I ever need duplicates. So to start off here is the pugilist that I first completed way back here at the end of January last year.

I also wanted to lay out some near term plans beyond that painting project. Other than finishing off a couple of pieces for the Rutger Farmstead the next big project for me is to make a Victorian cityscape. I'm going to start with Coopers Street, sort of a typical mixed use area. I'm planning on some storefronts, row houses, and the cooper's yard/ brewery that lends the area its name. It gives me a starting point to expand downhill into the slums, docks, and warehouse districts or uphill to the government buildings and well-to-do mansions. Hopefully, this will also let me recreate one of the key images that I've had for my whole project, a giant steam robot battling a huge monster in a Dickensian city street as Victorian citizens flee in panic about their feet. I'm excited to see how close I can get!

Taken unawares outside of his usual stomping grounds of Coopers Street, Gordon "Bull" Sweeney gets ready to fight his way out!

Finally, I've grown tired of referring to everything as my steampunk universe. So I've decided to christen my little world The Steamworks. I'm hoping that this year I'll get the chance to describe more of my vision of a Victorian/Steampunk monstrous apocalypse.