This weekend I have a french essay... Math homework... A science pretest to do... A social studies project to finish... and an English book to read. Oh yeah, then I want to build lego, have a sleepover, Work on a game my friend and I are making, among other things. Geez.
Steampunk is a now common lego building genre it seems. Generally idealized as 19th-century european steam-powered inventions, it has grown to be a vast theme of many varieties. It embodies the idea of "What if the combustion engine (or fancy-shmancy electricity) was never invented?" then we would end up with planes like
this and cars like
this.
A quick
search on brickshelf gets you lots of different models, from
smooth wood and boilers to
clunk junk machines. Steampunk to most people is really a way to use interesting parts that you usually wouldn't, like for most space builders they can throw in some technik gears and barrels for wheels and boilers. Many people interpret it differently too... like marakoestra has made the wood-only (more magical)
inventions of Professor Nutbolt (steampunk is also notorious for outrageous inventor names), while
smartiac seems to see it as more of a society, everything is steampunk and that's the way it is, Even [steam] craft
carriers!. He even brought steampunk into the future (weird thought, I know) with a steam-powered
robot.
The [near] inventor of the genre is Kevin Heckle (aka
Jonesy), has built
steampunk, (click the letters) for a while now, and the other kevin (
Kevoh) jumped on the bandwagon just afterwards. Kevoh has even more
steampunk (click the letters again), but his is more "fantasy" (like marakoestra.) This brings up an interesting point, how
magic is steampunk? Kevoh's cyclopin (k) and Hitodama (u) are totally outrageous in real life. Some of the others too. The Cars are a little more reasonable, but still, how long would that last before you need to re-fill on water and coal?
Magic/Fantasy has really become part of the "steampunk" genre now.
Mr. Yrizzary's floating rock ship is a great example of total fantasy, but to understand it you need some background on the "floating rocks." Jonesy, is most definitely the creator of this mini-theme. It started with an innocent little MOC, a rather random "
floating village." I'm not quite sure where it went from there, but after a few years floating rocks were popping up everywhere! From the
small (but pretty, you gotta admit) to the
am
az
ing, it was a staple in the new steampunk! Now, why do the rocks float? This has been
discussed and discussed, but soon enough, Bossy 'ol Jonesy gave this semi-conclusion:
"The minifigs in my world don't know how or why the floating rocks float, and I think it's better to keep it mysterious and have lots of legends and theories about it. I like to think that floating rocks move in the sky at tectonic speeds (i.e. 1 inch per year or so), if they move at all. However, in the anime series Escaflowne there were airships that used floating rocks for lift by heating them, which is an idea I will endorse.
Aaron's idea is nice and interesting, except replace "hydrogen and helium" with "fizzy lifting juice" or something similarly goofy and magical, because hydrogen doesn't have the lifting power. The coral thing sounds pretty close to Eureka Seven's "scab coral", which would be a huge spoiler if I explained further.
I will share some of my ridiculous and embarrassingly fantasy-genre theories:
1. Aftermath of a War of the Magi (yeah, FF6 ref): About a thousand years ago, all the wizzards had one great big war over something or other, and where a wizzard died in battle, the immediate vicinity became a floating rock. (OMG emo)
2. Pocket Universe: The universe of floating rocks is stuck to another universe in untold millions of spots, like plastic wrap. The other world has a vastly different landscape, and the core of a floating rock is rock that's deep underground in the other world.
3. Magick Crystals: Floating rocks are where magic whooshy crystals grew underground at the convergence of two or more magickal ley lines of magic, and the crystals took the surrounding rock with them as the ley lines changed.
4. Magick Redux: Did you ever put raisins in 7-Up as a kid? You know how like the raisins float and then sink and then float again? It's like that with rocks, except magic.
5. STFU: They float because I say they float. I will break you if you ask any more questions.
Okay, I feel retarded now. Damn you all for making me explain.
P.S. Death to Castle!!!111"
So there ya have it. Floating rocks float. Because they float. Just a note too, Jonesy didn't really "invent" floating rocks. They have probably been around in books and TV a lot longer, like
skyland and stuff like that.
Please remember that this is just a prototype article, it isn't done and isn't perfect. Enjoy.
RLOSIDWTTA:
Jerac's steampunk boatA great topic on inspiration and sortingA sweet little mecha by tim
Greetings.
Another small-time builder on brickshelf, " k1089" made an interesting Alchemist's hut. It's nothing specialy really, but the interior is nice and I think he used a lot of colors in a good way (look at the roof part of the hut red, green, brown, etc.) I just don't like the top of the "tree", it looks way to sparse and wimpy. A cool idea would make it at a slope, like the tree had gotten chopped by some sort of giant. That would be cool.
