Steampunk Costume: Introduction
A while ago a friend told me that they were planning a steampunk party for her husband’s birthday. Being an über geek, I was very excited and immediately starting thinking of costume ideas. The party was held yesterday and there were some amazing costumes!
What I want to do here is document how I made my costume. It was nothing fancy, but will hopefully provide a glimpse of what you can do if you are on a budget and strapped for time.
The Idea
I’m sure that some will consider the hardest part of such an endeavour to be deciding on what to make. At first, I thought of doing a steampunk scientist àa la Dr. Horrible. It would comprise a few “simple” elements and a complicated device which I would make myself with moveable parts and gadgets such as a mirror, helping hands and a pulley. This would have a fake leather base and be strapped to my arm. This ambitious plan was binned very quickly, however, as there were practical limitations: where the hell do you find a doctor’s smock? And those goggles? Insemination gloves I would probably be able to find, but none of all of these will be cheap, right?
Ok, scratch that. Next idea.
Uh, I dunno… How would steampunk special ops look like? It’s an intriguing idea, but it wasn’t going to float this time and my time was running out.

This was my first idea: gloves, goggles, doctor's smock (not scrubs) and an arm contraption thingy. Looks good, is expensive.

How would this guy look in a steampunk setting? Sadly, I wasn't going to find out this time around.
The good news is that you do not always need an idea of something to make. Turns out that half the fun is making do with what you can find!
The Supplies
Enter the hardware store: a central character in our story. For grown up men, the hardware store is a contemporary toy store: whether you are a builder, renovator or costume designer, the hardware store is for you! This is where you go to release your imagination and feel like you are seven years old again. So, stalk the aisles and see what treasures you can find! Here are some of the loot I carried off:

A gun for extracting glue, foam, etc. from certain types of containers.

Welding Goggles

Some stuff I got from the hardware store and found at home.
I wonder what the lady at the checkout thought of this smorgasbord if items!
But the hardware store is not, and should not, be your only ally in your steampunk endeavour. If you have a garage, or an old, overstocked store room, or parents, relatives or friends with many things from yesteryear, take a dive into that pile of antiquities. This can be even more fun than looking for new stuff at the hardware store: you might even awaken an old memory or two and find yourself reminiscing a bit! The last picture above already shows some of the stuff I found at home, here are some more:

A broken wrist watch

Random knick-knacks

An old, broken travel alarm

Leather gloves
The Assembly
A week before the party, I gathered the above items and I spray painted most of them. But when the day of the party eventually came, I still had to assemble everything. In the end I was a tad strapped for time! So, here’s another top tip: make sure you have enough time and do it properly. My costume came out alright, but I knew I could have done more. And, looking at some of the costumes other people spent some time on, you know that theirs has a certain “Cool!” factor yours just doesn’t. So, if you are going to make a steampunk costume, remember to leave yourself enough time to do it properly! But luckily I had enough time to take some pictures. Here is some of what I did:

Post spray paint

A bronze-painted carton
My idea was to attach the Pringles™ tubes as “canisters” to the carton, then to attach the metal elbows to them. The gun then attaches to the canister through an old washing machine outlet pipe to form some sort of weapon. The gun itself I would “flesh out” a little by adding a toilet paper tube to the middle bit and spraying that bronze as well.
“But what are you making?” Nothing specifically: I’m just using the parts that I have to make something. I am plenty geeky, but not enough to think up a backstory for my costume…
Trying to glue the tubes to the carton was a disaster: not only did the glue eat away at the spray paint, but the round tube provided much too little surface area for the glue to be affective. So I resorted to using some double sided tape. Attaching the metal elbows to the canisters was a bit of a problem. I cut small holes in the lids of the Pringles™ tubes and pushed the elbows through. To prevent them coming back out the same way, I reinforced the back of the lid with some of the off cut cardboard. The weight of the metal elbows was also a problem, so I put some glue on the inside of the lids before I put them back on.

Attaching the metal elbows to the Pringles™ tubes.
On top of one of the canisters I put a flat round plastic container, which I fashioned to (more or less) look like some sort of guage. I also stuck the old mechanical counter I had to the carton.

The Backpack nearing completion.
Now for the hard part: getting this thing on my back! I had a few pieces of elastic band which I stitched together with safety pins (at this point I was running out of time, ok?). I cut slits into the cardboard and wove in the elastic bands. These I would then fasten over my chest using more safety pins. I could also have chosen to use string, from which I could make loops to put my arms through and carry this around like a backpack, but apart from the fact that I didn’t think of this at the time (true story), I thought I could hide the elastic band underneath my vest. I also attached a paraffin lantern, mostly just because I had one:

A cool little lantern I picked up for cheap.
At the very last minute I decided to fashion a pendant from some of the bits and pieces that was still left over. Unfortunately I needed a base, and all that I could find was the lid of a tin of tuna:

My pendant.
I didn’t have a pocket watch: but I had the next best thing: a 50 year calendar. I think my grandmother gave this to me about 15 years ago: “Maybe you can still use this one-day” (I was the youngest grandchild at that point who wasn’t in dipers).

A 50 Year Calendar.
Lastly I fixed a cane which use to belong to my grandfather (it just needed a new rubber foot piece).
Ok, the actual clothes: I wore long black pants and shirt with a beige-ish vest. The shoes I wore was the closest I had to boots and hadn’t been worn in years, but they held together. The plan was to get a top hat, but I wasn’t willing to spend R80 on a party hat that looked the part (I rather buy myself a real on later in life when I have the money
), so I bought another one for cheaper with the idea of altering it later, but it melted in the sun in the back of my car—true story. In the pictures below, I borrowed a top hat from a friend who was more dedicated than I was.
Finally, I tried to conjure a beard out of the week-old stubble which I had—didn’t work that well…
The Reveal
Ta-dah…

Reveal #1

Reveal #2

Reveal #3
Conclusions
- Steampunk is expensive, unless you live next to a scrapyard or something.
- Is it worth it? Definitely, but then you must have the money and, more importantly, the time. Steampunk is as much an art as a genre. If you put in the time, you will create something beautiful which you will be proud of. If not, you’ll immediately realise it and mourn for the missed potential.
Resources
Here are some interesting steampunk websites: