Despite being based on the ultra feminine and severe Victorian style of dressing, Japanese Lolita tends to go a little crazy when it comes to stylization and improvisation of fashion, makeup, and hair. Just take this crazy pouf of a pigtail, for instance.
With the new year right around the corner, it's time to talk about the end of the 19th century, a time which plays an enormous role in Steampunk. If you've done any reading of British books written from about 1890 to 1899, you may have come across the phrase 'fin de siecle' and wondered what it meant. You also may have come across this term in reading about the late Victorian era. No worries, I'll tell you all about it! Image by Giovanni Dicandia
A dead British science nerd figured out the best way to cut a cake to preserve maximum freshness, and it's pure genius (well, sorta). His name? Sir Francis Galton, a polymath infamously known as the founder of eugenics, and apparently owner of a very big sweet tooth.
A Steampunk's Guide to Sex was the subject of a recent successful Kickstarter campaign, and I now hold the finished book in my hands. As such, I can say (mostly) unreservedly that you should buy this book. Allow me to tell you why, before I get into the nitty-gritty about the book itself. Sex is something of an odd topic in America because it's perfectly legal, and yet taboo. Unlike things that are illegal and not taboo, like drug use, murder, theft, etc. What this means is that children can ...
While I am a writer with a degree in Creative Writing, I haven't published any Steampunk fiction. However, as a panelist and track director, I've been on panels with many well-known Steampunk writers and have gleaned insight from the things they've said. I've compiled some of those things into this post, which will hopefully be helpful to all of the writers out there!
The ultimate in repurposing fashion. Start with an empty, clean paper coffee cup. Then cut off the rim, make your own brim and then paint and add your favorite decorations and accessories. You'll end up with a lovely neo-Victorian or steampunk tiny top hat!
The Schottische is a partnered country dance, Bohemian in origin. Schottische was popular in Victorian era ballrooms (part of the Bohemian "folk-dance" craze) and left its traces in folk music of countries as distant as France, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Sweden. At the start of the 20th century in the Southern United States the schottische was combined with ragtime at the beginning of the 1900's
The BLT sandwich dates back to late Victorian Tea Sandwiches. The acronym, BLT comes from diner waitresses and cooks who abbreviated the sandwichs name at busy lunch counters across America. In its simplest form, the BLT brings together a delicious combination of flavors. To make my ultimate BLT you will need: thick-cut slab bacon - you can use turkey bacon for a leaner alternative, butter lettuce and arugula, red ripe tomato, your favorite bread, mayonnaise and blue cheese dressing. I think ...
We don't spend much time thinking about bicycles today, do we? Sure, they're a "green" alternative to driving everywhere in cars, but the vast majority of America has dismissed them as simply being too much work, or more importantly—too slow. That wasn't always the case, though, I assure you!
Thrift stores! As a Steampunk, they can be your best friend, but it's easy to make a tragic mistake. This hands-on guide will help you navigate the murky waters of successful thrifting in order to find the hidden gems that will make your Steampunk outfit complete!
I can imagine you sitting there thinking to yourself, "I've played a lot of games! I bet he won't have any that I don't know about!" Well, that's entirely possible. I'm only drawing from my own personal experience here, so you may, in fact, know of all these games.
Many people find Steampunk problematic for a whole host of reasons, not least of which is the glorification of an era of Western history that featured institutionalized slavery, racism, sexism, elitism, and many more -isms.
Tea has been around for thousands of years, and as a result, tons of customs and ceremonies have sprung up around its consumption. Some cultures take their tea plain, while others put things in it. Sometimes there are special tea-holding vessels, other times not. Maybe there will even be special foods meant to be eaten with tea. However, in America, our appreciation of tea has waned. For many, iced tea is their biggest source of tea consumption, and it's imbibed with no ceremony whatsoever in...
Let's say that you've got the look down, and you have your Steampunk props all ready to go. Congratulations! You're a Steampunk!
I collect straight razors from the Victorian era and then add some steampunk style. Step 1: Remove the Old Scales
We don't generally think of medicine as being very relevant to Steampunk, but it was a big part of Victorian science fiction. Notable examples that you may be familiar with would be Frankenstein and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
The upcoming web series "Crypto-Historians" does for cryptohistory what Indiana Jones did for archaeology. For those who don't know, cryptohistory is the study of supernatural or alien elements throughout history, and yes—it's a "real" field.
This most recent school shooting, one of the worst in history, has devastated our country. That such an act can be performed not by a begrudged child, but by one or more adults, is nearly unthinkable.
This post has been brought to you by the letter S. With the Christmas season fast approaching, it's time to ask one of the most important questions of our lifetime:
The holiday season is creeping up fast, and if you're shopping for a Steampunk, it could be almost impossible to find anything for them unless you know exactly where to look. Luckily for you, some of us have done all of the work you'll need. Whether you're Steampunk shopping for Christmas, Hanukkah, Chrismukkah (yes, that's real), Kwanzaa, or Festivus, you're sure to find something for that special lady or gentleman in your life by taking a stroll down this list!
A well-executed jack-o'-lantern can be pretty damn impressive, but some of us lack the carving skills necessary to pull it off and end up disappointed. Sometimes you just don't want to put in all the time required to cut open a pumpkin, gut it, and chisel an elaborate face or cool design into it.
With this article, I'll be continuing the series I started with my recent plague doctor article. That is, examining tropes that may at first appear to not fit into Steampunk.
As practically the entire Steampunk world knows by now, IBM has predicted that Steampunk will be the big new trend from 2013 to 2015. They based this prediction on their computers, which sift through broad swathes of the internet in order to see patterns that may help commercial industries. According to them, Steampunk has been on the rise for the last few years, and they predict that it will explode into peak popularity within the next two years. But what does that mean and how will it impac...
Not that long ago I wrote an article discussing what it would be like, realistically, if you were to accidentally travel back in time to the Victorian era. At the end of that article, I mentioned that the best thing you could bring with you on a time-traveling adventure is a Kindle, or similar e-reader, stuffed full of the knowledge of the 21st century. Why a Kindle? Well, I own a Kindle, and I love it. However, there's far more to it than that.
I've had a handlebar mustache for about five years now, and I've learned a lot over those years about how to grow and care for it. I will now share all of that information with you! Hopefully this will encourage you to grow one for Movember! The first thing I want to address right now is that I do not use wax on a daily basis. I kind of hate using wax, but I still do it on occasion. I shall teach you my secrets, starting from the beginning!
We see Steampunk props all the time and wonder where the maker found all their pieces. In fact, for some people it's almost like a game to examine each prop and see if they can name all of the original parts.
If you've been to a convention of any sort before, you know that there are good and bad panels, and that their inherent goodness or badness often has little to do with the actual content being discussed. That's because giving a panel is a skill that not everyone has. However, it is a skill that everyone could have! In this article, I'll tell you how to give a good panel on practically any subject. Image by Shannon Cottrell
In this how to video learn to incorporate different styles into your home. Mix Mid-century modern with antique Victorian for a great new look.
Another name for jumper's knee is patellar tendinitis. Jumper's knee is an injury that affects the tendon connecting your kneecap (patella) to your shinbone. The patellar tendon plays a pivotal role in the way you use your legs. It helps your muscles extend your lower leg so that you can kick a ball, push the pedals on your bicycle, and jump up in the air. Learn about the different causes of, symptoms of, and treatments for jumper's knee in this video.
There's something about the world of steampunk that fascinates me. WonderHowTo has plenty of steampunk projects, like the hardware chess set, binocular goggles, and even a lesson on fashion. But nothing screams steampunk more than nevets_mcd's hard drive case.
This is a big salute to the freak shows and circuses of the victorian era, the era of the weird and downright wonderful;taxidermy squirrels in top hats having tea, bearded ladies and voyeurismso i propose a kangroo boxing fight tribute to the best freaks and morons of the era, get that cup out johnny you will need it.
What do you do when you desperately need to put a parking garage into the bottom floor of your Victorian apartment building, but the city's Department of Planning says "No". The simple and expensive answer: Create an elaborate secret garage door. If you own a pretty building, it is well within the jurisdiction of the Landmark Commission to inform you that even though you own the piece of property, you cannot remodel it any way you want. Seems un-American. But in San Francisco, specifically th...
Lisa Eldridge is one of the most preeminent makeup artists in the fashion editorial space today, working with nearly every A-list female in Hollywood. Her blog is full of interesting tutorials and articles, and Eldridge recently posted a fascinating interview with Madeleine Marsh, historian and author of Compacts and Cosmetics: Beauty from Victorian Times to the Present Day.
Veronique Chevalier coined the term "superculture" as a descriptor for the burgeoning realm of steampunk, and it's now gaining a foothold...She now has her very own footnote in steampunk history, #81 to be exact!
In the early 20th century, some people decided that it would be a great idea to play polo with cars. Sounds like a great idea, right? It was, and it wasn't.
Swing music was later than the Victorian era, but electro-swing music can call that retrofuturistic era to mind. I recently saw this review of an electro-swing album, "Electro Swing For the Masses" by Good Co~, who features one of the musicians from the well-known Steampunk band Abney Park. Electro-swing is just what it sounds like: a fusion of electronic and swing music. For anyone who hasn't heard any of it, check it out!
President Andrew Jackson was a pretty rough guy. He routinely fought in duels, and even used to beat people with a stick. That's not very funny.
Mike Doyle's latest LEGO house (perhaps even more hauntingly beautiful than the last) is a Victorian mansion that transcends the material so effectively, the plastic reads like real rotting bricks and mortar. Beautiful house-devouring trees, created with LEGO hinge cylinders to mimic the texture of tree bark, and ridged 3 mm hose, droid arms and other technic connectors for the creepy, spindly branches.
Everyone knows who Charles Dickens is—the famous English author responsible for such iconic novels as Great Expectations, A Christmas Carol and The Adventures of Oliver Twist. But what if this Victorian era novelist (who died in 1870) was resurrected into today’s futuristic world? How would you explain the concept of a technology he’s never seen before? Even something that perfectly fits his area of expertise—books? How would you elucidate the Amazon Kindle?
Update 7/8 New animal - The Bison!
