Steampunk Mechanical Arm

As mention in a previous post, the building of a Steampunk Dueling Pistol, I'm a member of the Dublin Steampunk LARP Society.  The LARP is set in Dublin, in the year 1862.  My character is an Inventor/Business man who makes technological oddities for people who will to pay him.  Much like what I do!  As part of the characters background he lost his right arm and eye in an accident at this workshop many years prier but was able to build himself a fully working mechanical arm, because you know "Steampunk".  This of course means I need to have the proper costume piece to wear in game.  When the LARP started I had a poorly thrown together arm, made from card wrapped in tinfoil.  But when I had this arm signed by Professor Elemental at a Steampunk Burlesque night I decided to retire it as I didn't want to destroy the signature.  This of course forced me to create a whole new arm.  My girlfriend found, and bought me, several sheets of "Funky Foam" which turned out to be a really good building material.

Since I'd already built one arm I use the shape of that to recreate the updated version.  I started with the hand, remember how much of a pain it was to do the first time round.  I also learned from my mistakes, and taking a page from Punished Props Dragon Age 2 armor build I cut each piece on the fingers so that they would over lap for when I bend them. Because the more you know, and knowing is half the battle.  Yo Joe.

I spent a weekend looking for a decent glove that I could use a the base for the gauntlet.  Failing to find one I bought the cheapest set of gloves from Pennys that looked right.  I did a test on the first finger to make sure I'd gotten the cut right and what do you know I did.  See my previous "Yo Joe" statement.

This was then repeated four more times for each finger with a hand guard was cut and glued on top of the gauntlet. Which over lapped the fingers.

Then the forearm was measured and cut out, again using the old arm as a template for the shape.  I have a beautifully made leather Steampunk shoulder guard, which may one day be replaced but for now I only need to worry about making the lower arm.  Got my hands on strips of Velcro to be use for taking off the arm at the back and added a extra strip of foam to make it look like it has a piece of metal bolted the arm closed (not seen in pic).

Once the base was done I moved on to painting and "damage".  Since my character works with huge machinery and the likes the metal on the arm, as well as the leather, has been scraped and scared over the years.  So all this weathering was added with my trusty dremel.  Since I was also going to have layers of detail simulating different layers of leather and metal I painted as I went, not waiting for the whole thing to be fully assembled before the painting starts.  Which is what I would normal do.

Seeing as how it's a Steampunk LARP the costume piece had to have cogwheels in it somewhere.  I wanted to look like the cogs did something and where not there just for show.  So they were added in two area.  One on the top of the gauntlet, showing the clockwork that made the fingers work.  The second was just before the wrist on the forearm section.  The cogs where cut from card and then coloured in a brass/copper paint.  You can also see the extent I went to with the weathering on the metal of the gauntlet.  This is also why I had two layers of foam on the arm.  It added a nice sense of depth when looking at the clockwork giving the feeling that it's not just cogs on top of the arm, they are inside it.

The studs on the fingers and knuckles I found, randomly, in a hardware store.  While the smaller ones are thumbtacks with the ends cut off.

The forearm was made in much the same way.  The cogs where given a sliver coat over the copper for a bit of variety.  I took a bit of inspiration from other Steampunk arms that I'd image searched, the piping being one of them.  This arm was been built at the same time are the Steampunk Dueling Pistol hence the reason for the piping on the gun.  Here it made more sense as the arm is "powered" by steam.  The pipes where just 0.1inch plastic tubes that I heated up and bent into shape.  Then painted gold.

A while back I got my hands on some vacuum tubes that my college was throwing out and I though that now would be the prefect time to use one.

What I learned from this build is that foam is really easy to work with and I am no longer averse in making costume pieces for people.  Also Steampunk themed props are really enjoyable to make, apart from all the cogwheels that needs to be cut out.

-M