Steampunk

Steampunk Research 

Welcome to my first of many research posts and this document will contain definitions, history, examples of images and analysis on existing art style. Hopefully this will be very interesting. 
History and definition of Steampunk

Steampunk is a sub-genre of science fiction and is regularly used in literacy and art. This style of art has a unique design characteristic which is incorporating modern technology with 19^th century imagery. In addition, the imagery can also include supernatural technology, such as spaceships, and 20^th century machines.  The interesting point about the name is that the word ‘Steam” refers to steam technology which symbolises the 19^th century and the industrial revolution.  As for the  word ‘punk’, it is just reference for another genre of science fiction known as Cyberpunk. 

This creative and social movement started in the 1980’s. Technically speaking, Steampunk has existed since the Victorian age due to writers like H.G Wells writing science fiction stories, such as War of the Worlds. Now the Steampunk has spread all forms of media, ranging from video games, like Bioshock and movies. 

Famous artist, media and examples 

Artist and designers

• Chris Bachalo from Steampunk Magazine 
• Peter Riddihoff the designer for the Airborn movie 
• Tom Banwell who produces masks that imcororates 20th century technology with a Victorian theme
• Joe Benitez

Films

• Laputa: Castle in the Sky-  An anime movie with the steam punk theme 
• Master of the World
• Lady Mechanika 
 

 

Current existing posters

Steampunk Magazine Issue (Chris Bachlo)

The image designed by Chris Bachlo who incorporates elements from the Victorian age with science fiction. The image's purpose was to act as a cover for the Steampunk Magazine issue number 5. The main attraction for the cover is the illustrations and the good colour scheme. 

The cover features 4 cartooned designed characters holding flags whilst traveling on transportation that is flying. Due to characters and the ship taking 70 percent of the image, this therefore is the main focal point.  This enhances the impact of their poses because the close shot shows more details on their faces, body language, and clothes, thus making the character look more powerful. Although there aircraft technology already exist, the design comes from the world of imagination. 

The strong contrast between the cream coloured sky and multiple shades of browns on the ship catches the audiences' eyes to the centre of the page. The shadows and lighting effects gives the cartooned characters depth, therefore, they are the main focal points. Applying brown rather than detailed bright colours sets a Victorian theme for the cover, which makes the design cover feel vintage. The black cog wheel symbolises Victorian technology to used to their clothes and decoration. San serif is used for the title because a Serif would make too difficult for the viewer to see and would make less relatable to the younger audience. Although the old fashioned themed writing below text relates to the feel and theme, letters with large descenders, like g, either overlap the imagery or other text. 

This cover for Steampunk Magazine introduces a up-beat mood due to the characters smiling. The characters look very excited to travel on this aircraft As there are no distorted lines, it shows a clean style of drawing.  As the character look clear, this suggest that Chris used Illustrator to develop 

Master of the world poster

Master of the World includes imagery that symbolises the Victorian techonolgy; for example hot air balloons, merged with 20th century equipment, such as the giant jets. Unlike the previous example, this poster features multiple images at different positions to give the artwork greater depth. Half of these the images existed in the 1950's when the movie came out. Featuring people jumping off the unusual blimp, a person using a fighting pose suggests this is a adventure genre of movie. 

The poster consists of fighting in the air and the ground to maintain the excitement. The use of the white box enables the text area to be noticeable to the audience and layout to look easy on the eye. This solves the problem  of having illegible text on a very bright yellow background. Due to its positioning and scale, it does resembles of a billboard and a large cinema screen. 

 The most important focus point is the large airship. The ship comes across a intimidating due to its large size and red being used on the on the windows. This enables the poster to create a sense of anticipation and excitement. stand out to viewers seeing it from a far distance. There are men swinging on the ropes near the title, therefore it compels the viewer to read the content.


This is a good example of a poster that uses scaling to make the battle scene look more dramatic.  Using a partly close shot rather than a long shot of man enhances the pose and aggressive facial expression. This design feature suggests that the man is tough, dangerous and is capable terrorising people with ease. However, the use of white behind his head makes his head more noticeable.

As this movie was broadcast in the 1950's, it would have been printed of magazines and billboards. This techniques used to produce the poster would have included using sketching and painting due to the high quality colouring on the characters and on the ship. With the process of drawing the characters, developing the typography, coming up with content and painting the shades, lighting and mid tones, it may have taken about 2- 4 months.  



Airborn: Peter Riddihoff


The main cover for this book shows the main character of the story exploring the environment surrounding on a blimp or an airship. The ship behind is covered with black shadow due to the position of the light source, it therefore creates a suspicious feel for the viewer. The use of existing technology, like the telescope, prevents the image from showing

The central focus for the poster is the character and the title of the book cover. The light from the interior causes his shadow to become darker and gives his face more detail and depth. The lighting effects catches the audiences' attention to ensure that they  are focusing to the text area.

 The style of the text and title also catches the the audience attention because there is information that suggests that the book is written by a skilled writer who is a best seller author. Having the word, 'Airborn', relating to the landscape, which is the sky,  sums the story in one word and the thick san serif font brings the design style from propaganda World War 1 and 2 army posters.

As this has elements from a World War 1 poster, the colour scheme is very rich and smooth. The main colour scheme consists, brown, red, white, black for the shadows and the yellow light. Due to the lighting effect and colour, the adverts style come across as thrilling and dramatic. 

According to resources, this book was published in 2004. This suggests that a vector based program, Illustrator, was used as the primary program. As Illustrator would have allowed capable of allowing the artist, Peter Riddoff, to undo mistakes and increase the assets' sizes, completing this project would take 2-4 weeks.

Steampunk in Games and Books(modern )

Games: Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy


Unlike other examples of Steampunk work,  Jak 1 characters wear medieval style of

clothing with 19th and 20th century technology, like goggles. A highly saturated colour scheme is applied to the cartoon designed characters and landscapes to make the game look dynamic.  The game demonstrates that using a vibrant colour scheme enhances the impact of the design of the fantasy world. The large contrast of colours on the eyes and blue clothes is a good example of this.  The use of a striking colour scheme enables the game to make the fantasy world come across as unusual which is a characteristic of a  cartoon . Overall this captivates a young  audience to play the game due to the colourful visual language.  

The designers of Naughty Dog are influence by artwork featuring gold or silver metal to create effective designs for certain areas of the games.  The game features transportation equipment, like a hot air balloon, that come from the world of imagination. Majority of them include pipes and other Victorian technology that makes the overall graphics look vintage. 

As this was produced in the early 2000, the developers must have used some 3D graphics based program to produce the elements in the game.








References that helped me to conduct my research 

http://www.steampunk.com/what-is-steampunk/

http://www.gdfalksen.com/Steampunk

http://www.ministryofpeculiaroccurrences.com/what-is-steampunk/

Artist and films url evidence 


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_in_the_Sky
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steampunk_(comics)
http://www.tombanwell.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_the_World_(1961_film)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Mechanika

References for existing artwork: 
http://www.notechmagazine.com/2009/04/putting-the-punk-back-into-steampunk.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_the_World_%281961_film%29
http://zouchmagazine.com/art-shots-steampunk-games-with-chris-miscik/#.UlBNtxCNcR5
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airborn_(novel)
http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2013/01/aspen-breaks-ties-with-joe-benitez-and-lady-mechanika/ 
http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Joe_Benitez
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BioShock_Infinite
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jak_1
http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/LadyMechanika-04a.jpg