{"id":3253,"date":"2013-03-24T19:05:34","date_gmt":"2013-03-24T23:05:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/giveneyestosee.com\/blog\/?p=3253"},"modified":"2013-03-25T10:54:13","modified_gmt":"2013-03-25T14:54:13","slug":"steampunk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/giveneyestosee.com\/blog\/2013\/03\/steampunk\/","title":{"rendered":"Steampunk"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve long been a fan of the Steampunk aesthetic. Gears, clockwork, copper, leather; that neo-Victorian style combined with some H.G. Wells and a bit of what if?<\/i> imagination. But it’s not something I’ve ever participated in personally. Until earlier this year I kinda decided to start seeing if I could put together an outfit.<\/p>\n

Then Saturday, March 23rd was Steampunk Invasion at the Bay Area Renaissance Festival<\/a> and I wanted to finally make the outfit a reality.<\/p>\n

\"My<\/a>
My first ever attempt at putting together a steampunk outfit! (Click for larger)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

How’d I do it?<\/b>
\nMost women in steampunk wear corsets and skirts\/dresses, often with a bustle or pickups. It’s a cool look but man it just looks wildly uncomfortable to me. I know it’s based on a Victorian influence (hence the skirts\/dresses) BUT, why limit yourself? I decided to go for a more “liberated” look and opt for pants.<\/p>\n

Slowly over a few months, I scrounged GoodWill, ebay and such and pieced together some items that I thought achieved the look I wanted. I found a ruffle blouse, a wool vest and some “sailor” pants with buttons all for super cheap which all worked together. I had a pair of old brown boots that would work and I got some accessories like a top hat, a pair of welding goggles from amazon and a Nerf gun to repurpose and transform.<\/p>\n

My Nerf started off like this:
\n

\"Nerf<\/a>
Nerf Maverick gun before modifying it to be a Steampunk ray gun.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

I read a lot of info on the net about taking it apart and spray painting it but I got as far as removing two of the microscopically small screws….and couldn’t get the rest. So I just decided to hell with it, I was going to try to paint it without taking it apart. I scuffed the whole thing with sandpaper then sprayed the entire thing with several coats of an “oil rubbed bronze<\/a>” color spray paint trying to get in as many nooks and crannies as I could. I figured it was only $10 Nerf so I wasn’t too worried about ruining it and wasting money. Surprisingly, the base coat looked and worked great!<\/p>\n

I then used Rub ‘n Buff<\/a> (which I actually found in my local Micheal’s) in “Antique Gold” and “Silver Leaf” with my (gloved) finger and just went to town on it. I did various layers working it until I liked how it looked. I also went back in with some gunmetal acrylic (by Martha Stewart in her “multi surface” paint<\/a>) and copper which both worked surprisingly well on the plastic. I finished it with some matte Mod Podge<\/a> (I didn’t have any spray sealer) to help keep it from rubbing off. Few bits of jewelry findings finished the look.<\/p>\n

Came out like this:
\n

\"My<\/a>
My modified steampunk Nerf Maverick gun finished! It even still shoots!<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

I did the same thing with my welding goggles: a combination of the Antique Gold and the Silver Leaf Rub ‘n Buff took it from this:
\n

\"My<\/a>
My welding goggles before I modified them<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

To this…
\n

\"My<\/a>
My modified steampunk goggles painted and accented with tiny watch gears<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

\"My<\/a>
My completed top hat and painted steampunk goggles!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I know I need more accessories – I painted and modified my gun and my goggles on FRIDAY and went to the festival SATURDAY so for putting it together the day before, I was pretty proud – but it’s not hard if you think about modifying things rather than needing to make from scratch. And, like the pants I bought are a real, regular pair of pants (not costume-specific) but when you pair it with an outfit, they suddenly look different.<\/p>\n

I also wore Opalite Rainbow Moonstone Full Moon Tree of Life Pendant<\/a> in copper wire:
\n

\"Opalite<\/a>
Opalite Rainbow Moonstone Full Moon Tree of Life pendant in Copper by PhoenixFire Designs<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

I went to the Steampunk Costume Contest (though I didn’t enter) and talked to a several of the people. They were all really friendly and very encouraging and complimentary on my new costume. So that was really nice. A few people asked to take my picture too which means I must have been doing something right AND I had several people ask me about what the theme was and what “steampunk” was so it was nice to be able to help too. <\/p>\n

\"Airship<\/a>
Airship Navigator Lady M armed and ready for adventure! \ud83d\ude09<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I am really excited about it now and already planning on ways to expand my outfit and improve on it for next time. I was really encouraged and got good feedback and it was a lot of fun to do something different like this! I can’t wait to keep going with it and really make it even better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve long been a fan of the Steampunk aesthetic. Gears, clockwork, copper, leather; that neo-Victorian style combined with some H.G. Wells and a bit of what if? imagination. But it’s not something I’ve ever participated in personally. Until earlier this year I kinda decided to start seeing if I could put together an outfit. Then…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,1,14,1514],"tags":[761,760,1658,1665,1662,1663,1664,1671,1672,1670,1661,1666,1660,1659,1667,1669,1668,1674,1673],"class_list":["post-3253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment","category-general","category-phoenixfire-designs","category-things-to-do-2","tag-barf","tag-bay-area-renaissance-festival","tag-diy-steampunk","tag-how-to","tag-how-to-modify-nerf-gun-for-steampunk","tag-make-a-steampunk-gun","tag-make-steampunk-goggles","tag-making-your-own-steampunk-accessories","tag-making-your-own-steampunk-costume","tag-making-your-own-steampunk-outfit","tag-steampunk-costume","tag-steampunk-costume-pants","tag-steampunk-fashion","tag-steampunk-outfit","tag-steampunk-outfit-pants","tag-steampunk-woman","tag-steampunk-women","tag-woman-steampunk-costume","tag-woman-steampunk-outfit"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/giveneyestosee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/giveneyestosee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/giveneyestosee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/giveneyestosee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/giveneyestosee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3253"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/giveneyestosee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3272,"href":"https:\/\/giveneyestosee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3253\/revisions\/3272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/giveneyestosee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/giveneyestosee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/giveneyestosee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}