I made a steampunk costume

Every couple of years I actively participate in our version of mardi gras and dress up in a costume. It's usually something mundane like dressing up as a living statue or a girl or whatever.

Full costume

This year, however, I decided to go full out. Finally, an excuse to make a steampunk costume!

I'm not the handiest person in the world so the whole thing was a bit of a mess - not a single straight cut anywhere, parts of my room are now gold and there is trash everywhere. But I had a lot of fun working manually for two days. It's remarkably refreshing to do something in meatspace now and anon.

All the manly work even made my fifth chest hair grow! Score!

I'm quite pleased with the result, the costume turned out pretty decent and only cost about 30 euro in parts and another ~300 euro in time. Plus whatever old crap I found collecting dust around the house; like for instance, bits of my high school death metal outfit.

It begins with a pile of junk

Regular welding glasses from a store, just added the fluff

First stage of shoulder armor - an old belt, strip of cloth and leather tied on with aluminium wire

The hat is actually something I always wear

Normal welding gloves and some wire

Took several tries to make symmetric wings

The trick is to apply copper paint with a sponge

Armor panels

The finished shoulder armor drying

The gloves turned out quite well

Manliest my desk has ever looked

Slightly bigger picture of full outfit

Unfortunately the costume did not prevent me from accidentally getting way too drunk at the party. Lost my real glasses, the hat, my keys, even my moleskine.

All in all, the most expensive party I've ever been to ... but at least the costume is cool :)

Your NERF rifle love just got seriously steampunked (winextra.com)
Steampunk Nerf Gun of the Day (geeks.thedailywh.at)
Steampunk Costume Update (darkrosedesign.com)
Blast from the Past: Steampunk (mishidems.wordpress.com)
Steampunk moves on (kasiajames.wordpress.com)
Awesome Steampunk'd Disney Character Art! (geektyrant.com)
The Steampunk World's Fair 2012 (laughingsquid.com)

Did you enjoy this article?

👎👍

Published on February 23rd, 2012 in Clothing, Costume, Shopping, Steampunk, Uncategorized, Victorian era

Learned something new?
Want to become a high value JavaScript expert?

Here's how it works 👇

Leave your email and I'll send you an Interactive Modern JavaScript Cheatsheet 📖right away. After that you'll get thoughtfully written emails every week about React, JavaScript, and your career. Lessons learned over my 20 years in the industry working with companies ranging from tiny startups to Fortune5 behemoths.

Start with an interactive cheatsheet 📖

Then get thoughtful letters 💌 on mindsets, tactics, and technical skills for your career.

"Man, love your simple writing! Yours is the only email I open from marketers and only blog that I give a fuck to read & scroll till the end. And wow always take away lessons with me. Inspiring! And very relatable. 👌"

~ Ashish Kumar

Have a burning question that you think I can answer? I don't have all of the answers, but I have some! Hit me up on twitter or book a 30min ama for in-depth help.

Ready to Stop copy pasting D3 examples and create data visualizations of your own? Learn how to build scalable dataviz components your whole team can understand with React for Data Visualization

Curious about Serverless and the modern backend? Check out Serverless Handbook, modern backend for the frontend engineer.

Ready to learn how it all fits together and build a modern webapp from scratch? Learn how to launch a webapp and make your first 💰 on the side with ServerlessReact.Dev

Want to brush up on your modern JavaScript syntax? Check out my interactive cheatsheet: es6cheatsheet.com

By the way, just in case no one has told you it yet today: I love and appreciate you for who you are ❤️