[kevin242]

Behold "The Lobotrica"!

The Lobotrica

Top view

Neck drill and Aether canister

I’ve never made anything steam punk before this and have always enjoyed that style of design. I first started building sub-assemblies using a couple of small plastic safe boxes my kids got in a happy meal and some random containers I’ve been saving, they made a great base for adding gears and mechanical parts to and once completed, really set the tone for the rest of the project. The vacuum tube and neck drill assembly are scratch-built from small parts, containers and bits of wire. I hand-made all the gauges from color printouts, container lids and clear plastic. The box itself is a foam cooler that I painted with acrylics and used as a base for the subassemblies.
The head is an old practice hair head (one of 8) that was given to me by a friend, I think her blank stare, real hair and retro look go well with my theme.

Each gear/mechanical/exhaust part was hand-painted with metal enamel paints and attached with either CA or hot glue and screws or foam nails. The logo was made from a pair of wings from an airline flight my family went on.
I wanted to convey a feeling of electro-mechanical function without any actual moving parts, as well as a sort of Victorian logic in the design. Some of the small gears and lettering I purchased from Michael’s, they really helped tie the whole thing together.

There are many small details and references that need to be seen up close to appreciate but I hope you enjoy seeing The Lobotrica as much as I enjoyed building it!

Let me know what you think!

 

[Woodsy]

This is AWESOME and exactly what I want to do. Thanks for the pics and I will share when I build my first.

 

[Screaming Demons]

Great build!

 

[Haunted Neurons]

AWESOME echoed!

Very well done.

 

[Trex]

Looks great clearly a lot of time was spent on detail! Do parts light up? It is very cool!

 

[kevin242]

Looks great clearly a lot of time was spent on detail! Do parts light up? It is very cool!

Thanks, All. I spent a few weeks on it. Sadly no, it is not motorized. I built it for an online contest and there was a strict limit on the cost of materials. Though the gauge at the bottom right has a battery-operated LED chase light, I doubt it will ever be turned on.

 

[crazy xmas]

Great..... great detail I had to go back and look three times ok maybe four freakin awesome!

 

[the_great_gazoo]

Wow this is great Something I would like to add to my lab.

 

[Blarghity]

Hmmm... The vacuum tube on that steampunk contraption just gave me an inspiration I want to share, along with a piece of knowledge I want to share.

See, now I want to make something with vacuum tubes or chemistry plumbing that gets filled with smoke. Something slow that you can watch like a Rube Goldberg contraption.

Of course, we all know that a 400 watt fogger would make too much for that. But then I remembered, long before I had even heard of a fog machine, I was aware of scale railroad locomotives that generate their own smoke, in varying sizes and capacities depending on the scale of the model railroad. So the model railroad industry has an entire range of products able to generate much lower volumes of fog/smoke, and are small enough and generally safe enough to mount inside many props. It might be an awesome way to add smoke to a sparking fusebox, smoke coming out of ears, steam coming from fittings, etc...