Make a Steampunk Pumpkin. a SteamPunkin.

by Windsbro

22K9224

Intro: Make a Steampunk Pumpkin. a SteamPunkin.

The pun was too good to pass up.  I was going to do a painting of something like this, but with Halloween around the corner I thought I'd take a shot at the real thing.  It was pretty easy and only took a couple hours and a few bucks.  Endless possibilities here if you want to do something a little different this year.  
Happy Halloween!

STEP 1: Get Yourself a Pumpkin.

Ugly is good.  In fact, I bet that the uglier the pumpkin, the cooler the result.  
I hollowed mine out, thinking that I was still going to light it jack-o-lantern style,  but in hindsight I should have left it whole.

STEP 2: Sketch Out Some Ideas.

get those creative juices flowin.

STEP 3: Gather / Make Your Materials

Raid your junk drawer.  After the finishing paint even a straw can look like a cool piece of brass or copper tubing.  Remember that once this thing rots you're probably going to wind up chuckin your punkin in the trash, so you might not want to invest too much in materials.  Sculpy works wonders for making some quick textured pieces.  In case you're wondering about the eyes, I had a couple Mountain Lion taxidermy eyes laying around. I'll be sure to salvage those.  You can order really great glass eyes for a few bucks online if you're so inclined.
I decided just to make a whole bunch of stuff, without really knowing what all I'd use.

STEP 4: Paint Your Materials

I just hit everything with a quick coat of back spray paint.  Quick and easy.  Note that its probably best to do this before assembling everything together.

STEP 5: Get Ready for Assembly

I thought that I'd wind up using superglue to hold most things together, but found that sheet metal screws and wood screws both worked really well to fix things down.  If you have cats this is where they have to get all up in your business.  I just started to embed, glue, screw and punch into the pumpkin to get everything in place.  It happens pretty fast.

STEP 6: And Now You Have...

A creepy jet black pumpkin with creepy eyes.  all you need to do now is get out some copper or bronze colored paint and star dry bushing.  That's when things start coming together.

STEP 7: All Done.

In case you're wondering about some of the items used.

The weird goggle things:  egg carton with wires and stuff made from Sculpy.
Gears:  I found those at a craft store in the jewelry section.  I just shoved them into the pumpkin flesh like ninja stars.
Mouth:  corrugated card board.
Screws:  Some are real, some are Sculpy.
Monocle: a little glass locket, also from the craft store.  the chain and almost everything else is made from Sculpy... again.

Hope to see some others riff on this idea and post their results!

Paul

24 Comments

MAKCAH 7 years ago

It's so funny XD

Dreamchronic 10 years ago

Wow, scary and beautiful:D how can you have something like this at home, doesn´t it scare you?:D

spylock 11 years ago

Creepy cool,nice job.

justjimAZ 11 years ago

Cool. I've been making Steampunkins from foam for a couple years now.
Congrats on being a finalist!
https://www.facebook.com/Steampunkins

poofrabbit 11 years ago

Congratulations on being a finalist in the Halloween contest!!! Can’t wait to see if you win! Good luck!

Tomdf 11 years ago

If I could vote for this one twice, I would.

Freelyx 11 years ago

Kind of reminds me or Alastor "mad eye" Moody from the potter movies.

http://images2.makefive.com/images/entertainment/books/top-5-harry-potter-characters/alastor-mad-eye-moody-7.jpg

Might use a collection of these ideas here to create a keeper. Use the 'foam punkin (funkins)' from kurknotkirk's post and the 'jack o lantern one with hollow eyes and blinking displays...and a glowing furnace somewhere on it' from bcavaciuti's post, combined with your already great and talented ideas ... it would be epic!

JenerKanadier 11 years ago

Amazing! I look forward to seeing more of your work in the future!

flyingpuppy 11 years ago

You're a genius with sculpy! And those eyes make it shuddery creepy.

Penolopy Bulnick 11 years ago

Awesome! Those eyes are so creepy! (creepy in that they are on a pumpkin)

kurtnotkirk 11 years ago

Something like this is too cool to put on a real pumpkin that would rot... I am going to make this on a foam punkin (funkins) and that way I could do the glowing furnace effect as suggested in the comments above. Such a great job!!

Dark Passenger 11 years ago

looks good.
would you care to share some dry brush techniques?

Windsbro 11 years ago

Thanks everybody for the comments!
As for the dry brushing, this is how I do it but I'm sure there are some proper techniques out there. It's often used in painting little rpg figurines (those little Peuter guys), so you might find some good technical videos on YouTube.

I like to use an old, beat up brush.
I like "Golden" acrylic, and they have some nice iridescent colors. I used bronze and copper for this. If you're a painter I'd recommend playing around with some of their mediums. Modeling paste is awesome.
Get a little paint on the brush, then work it around on your palette to remove almost all the paint from the brush. When you begin applying to your work surface try and only apply in one direction. You should immediately begin to see the high points in the texture pick up the paint. Just use a light touch, and be careful not to have too much paint on the brush when reloading. It's also best to use a really light color for your dry brush over a darker base; it really makes the texture pop.

Tomdf 11 years ago

Those eyes are staring into my soul.

Pixie Puddle 11 years ago

Thats amazing and so much cooler than just carving a face I love its eyes, kinda creepy, :)

clewis21 11 years ago

This looks awesome!
More Comments