Handmade Steampunk Rayguns From the F/X Guys at Weta 103
An anonymous reader writes "Wired is presenting a gallery of artwork that inspired Weta's collectible rayguns, plus exclusive photos of the retrofurist sidearms. The article offers more than just images; each weapon has a description of where they were inspired from, as well as possible uses. 'In this illustration by Greg Broadmore, a hunter poses with his latest kill and his elegant retrofurist rifle ... "I started drawing these things just for fun," says Broadmore. "I did dozens of designs, all really stylized and Flash Gordon looking. I remember those black and white serials playing on TV as a kid and the imagery always stuck with me. Really hokey, but really scary and weird at the same time. And, of course, if you're a fan of classic rayguns you'll see the influence of the old toy rayguns. The Buck Rogers disintegrator pistol -- of course directly referenced in Han Solo's blaster in Star Wars -- is iconic, and that original raygun, along with many others, inspired me massively.'"
Weird... (Score:2)
Safety compliant? (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Safety compliant? (Score:5, Insightful)
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If your steampunk ray gun needs an orange plug, then I would say that your local police force has been eating doughnuts filled with LSD.
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If I put a blob for you, would you still hand a $1500 art piece to your kid to "shoot" around?
I'd rather see a firearm (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I'd rather see a firearm (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I'd rather see a firearm (Score:5, Insightful)
I can understand someone disliking bad and/or inappropriate set design, but some folks will have a bad attitude toward everything - honestly it's their loss.
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I was casually reading the comments without r'ing tfa as usual but... phlogiston and aether!?! That's awesome!
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Re:I'd rather see a firearm (Score:5, Interesting)
And were science-fiction movies documentaries, you'd have a point. But they're not. They're entertainment, and I'm entertained by fancy weapons, loud explosions in space, and planetary princesses whose costumes are held up solely by centrifugal force.
It was a tool used by bad writers and bad producers who didn't have content that was distinctive enough, so had to be distinctive with bling.
"Content?" "Content" is for websites. Movies are a visual medium, and the art direction and photography can be at least as important to the movie as the script, if the director says so. If you don't want the creator mucking up the plot with sounds and visuals, read a novel. Just stay away from E.R. Burroughs, and other classic authors of the genre.
I see a bunch of catering to the lowest-common-denominator intelligence
For the record, I'm smarter than you. And I say, "Bring on the Laser Beams!"
Re:I'd rather see a firearm (Score:4, Funny)
I think you meant: "held up [...] by the gravitational pull of their tits."
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Any decent Sci-Fi book I've ever read, be it Ender's Game, the Foundation or Dune, is an exercise in philosophical thinking. They either look long and hard at human behavior in extreme situations (The moon is a harsh mistress, anyone?) or they test socio-economical theories (Foundation) or it deals with Psychology (Ender's game), but it's never about the DF-Disruptor 2000 rifle with the twisty nobbies on it.
This is why I am a Battlestar
Re:I'd rather see a firearm (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I'd rather see a firearm (Score:4, Interesting)
So the Bling on a ray-gun might be a little over the top in our eyes, perhaps they are nothing more than a simple bit of decoration, or (you never know) it might actually have function. No-one can tell wether they are useless twisty spiky, doo-dadly junk that are stuck to the side, or functional elements. That's fiction for you.
B.
About pearl handles (Score:2)
Pre-1900, a number of pistol shooting competitions were a big deal, with near full-page coverage in major newspapers. There was a lot on the line and any small advantage was eagerly desired. Generally, the big matches took place over several days
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Not so with a laser.
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an old "broom handle" Mauser.
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Okay, but... (Score:1, Funny)
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Well, steampunk is easier to write than "An archaic Victorian-era style mechanical device, with obviously modern/post-Victorian elements such as computers/lasers/etc"
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I'm thinking it's you.
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Re:Steampunk = trendy tard-speak (Score:5, Funny)
I want a Lazy Gun (Score:5, Interesting)
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_gun [wikipedia.org]
I don't see it... (Score:3, Informative)
Beyond the images in the article, I just did a google image search for "buck rogers pistol" and don't see anything significantly relevant to Han Solo's D-44... if anything, it reminds me just how little they changed the Mauser Broomhandle to turn it into a blaster.
-l
Where's the handmade steampunk baggage scanner ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Whaddaya mean, 'fiction'? (Score:3, Interesting)
Okay, maybe a bit sci-fi, but I'm having fun building the VDG regardless.
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Big sparks is not something I'm really interested in since those are rather difficult to control and not very useful. Another experiment I'd like to try is to spin highly charged bodies around in a circle by mechanical force and see how strong a magnetic field I can generate that way. It'd be like a wire loop in
Careful with that capacitor... (Score:3, Informative)
That's only the case because the VDG creates such a small current. If you start storing it, you're increasing the potential for a lethal shock. A square foot or so of capacitor can easily store enough charge to kill you, depending on the dielectric. At 30 KV or so, the discharges from my homemade HV capacitors sounded like gunshots - I got complaints from the neighbors.
As for your other idea, I'm not convinced th
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If I really wanted to use an o
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The insulation degrading I didn't know about, but I figure I'd mount the plates on two metal frames that also worked as conductors for each pole. Plumbing copper tubing would work. Then only air would be my insulator.
You're right about an inch being a bit much, but the situation isn't quite that bad. Either way I'm more interested in a high break-down voltage than a high capacitance since I'll be dealing with high voltages
Retrofurist? (Score:5, Funny)
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
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A person who identifies with or is sexually attracted
to old-fashioned stuffed toys and/or anthropomorphic
animal characters in fiction and illustration.
Derived from "furry", denoting the similar but more common
inclination that accepts, and is chiefly oriented towards,
more modern depictions. Adherents of retrofurism mostly
use only "furist" to denote their group, feeling its
clever variation on "furry" suffices to convey the archaic
aspect. "Retro" is added mostly by outsiders to t
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Where the android Rachael got her coat? [bladezone.com]
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that's no android, that's my wife!
and btw, it's replicant. sheez.
- deckard
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Don't ask me, I'm still stuck on how this is 'steampunk'.
Are rayguns steampunk technology?
Or has the 'steampunk' genre evolved into anything goes in a Victorian-era setting?
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Or has the 'steampunk' genre evolved into anything goes in a Victorian-era setting?
AFAICT the 'steampunk' label basically applies to anything that you could have seen in the movie Wild Wild West [imdb.com] or in Back To The Future III [imdb.com]. But IIRC the guns in WWW were normal guns, so this has to have been from BTTF3. But that used regular guns too. So: no steampunk. Period.
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Take Disneyworld's "Tomorrowland" for a great example. I haven't been to Disneyworld in about 20 years, but by the 1980's Tomorrowland was looking really dated. It was a 1960's version of the future, which today looks like the 1960's. When they renovated Tomorrowland, they went for a more "classic", less "realistic" futuristic look, which (from what little I've seen in photographs) won't look any more dated in the 2010's than in the 1990's.
In fa
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Missing an important element! (Score:5, Insightful)
I wish more artists would embrace realistic fantasy.
It sounds like an oxymoron, but it's the difference between a movie only kids could enjoy, and something adults would want to go see too.
The first thing that struck me about those pictures is that nobody would ever, ever, ever use one of those contrived contraptions in a battle. A weapon in a science fiction flick can shoot lasers, warp space, or spray hot grits, but no weapon, fictional or real, can have that many protrusions. You'd never get it into, our out of, a holster. Every branch and bush would tear it out of your hand. And a gun with a glass bulb as a functional unit? Are you kidding me? The reason the guns looked so awesome in Star Wars was because they were made from real guns. Many of them were made from, or based on, real, practical designs. The science fiction element was that they shot laser beams.
There's suspension of disbelief, then there's suspension of common sense. Not the same thing!
Rant over. Please return to your scheduled fawning. 8)
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These specifically reference a subgenre that never concerned itself with realism.
Realism or at least practicality in sci fi has it's place, but this is not it.
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I agree with parent...these don't look practical at all; any self-respecting steampunk warrior would be better off with a trusty
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http://images.google.nl/images?svnum=10&um=1&hl=n
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FNH's P90 PDW -- the gun so badass that MacGyver uses it to defend earth from evil alien armies.
Let's not forget the companion sidearm, the Five-seveN -- perfect for pistolwhipping any crazy scientist who becomes VP and thinks that they're a Cylon.
Real "rayguns" (Score:2, Interesting)
Here is somebody who builds rayguns out of scrap. Perhaps these are more to your liking. I believe one of them is a functioning pea-shotter!
http://claytonbailey.com/galleryrayguns.htm [claytonbailey.com]
Makezine [makezine.com] published an nice article about these some time ago.
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Thank you.
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"Standing silhouetted in the doorway through which they had entered the vault was the man who wasn't pleased to see them. His displeasure was communicated partly by the barking hectoring quality of his voice and partly by the viciousness with which he waved a long silver Kill-O-Zap gun at them. The designer of the gun had clearly not been instructed to beat about the bush. "Make it evil," he'd been told. "Make it totally clear that this gun has a right end
Pay attention to the "universe" (Score:2)
For example, compare the phasers used in Star Trek V and VI with those used in The Next Generation. Both were produced in the same time period by the same studio using most of the same creative and prop people.
The V/VI phasers look mostly like handguns (except with the barrel mounted over the hand grip, instead of forward of it.) They're beefy, black, and serious-looking. The director of Star Trek V (William Shatner [khaaan.com], actu
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The reason the guns looked so awesome in Star Wars was because they were made from real guns. Many of them were made from, or based on, real, practical designs. The science fiction element was that they shot laser beams.
If I recall, Han Solo's pistol had a huge rifle scope on it. You think it looks "realistic", but I've read several rants from 'gun nerds' complaining how ridiculous "hollwood" gets things.
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Steam engines were always cantankerous, requiring as much or more maintenance as helicopters do today (and helicopters have a downtime for repairs that about matches their flying time, which is insane). They were high maintenance, and high failure. Fast forward to the first computers... thousands of glass tubes, which had to be replaced endlessly
Steampunk Air Rifles (Score:5, Interesting)
These are some of the most steampunk-ish actual working devices I've seen. Some are fancier than others, with the more ornate models looking like they came right out of Myst. They aren't movie or vidgame props, they are some of the most powerful and accurate (and expensive) air rifles in the world -- and all hand-made by Gary Barnes himself. Although not technically (or legally, in the USA) considered to be firearms, these air rifles have been used successfully for hunting deer, wild hogs, and in at least one case a buffalo.
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Han Solo weapon (Score:1, Informative)
where have all the trekkies gone/long time passing (Score:2, Interesting)
(Well, until now.)
Are all the trekkies getting hammered and watching Boston Legal these days?
Re:where have all the trekkies gone/long time pass (Score:2)
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These are even better "in the flesh"! (Score:3, Interesting)
Pretty amazing to see so many cynics completely miss the point on Slashdot. This is one thing I thought most geeks would be right into. Humorous yet artistic rayguns!
That's a trade secret... (Score:2)
Han Solo's pistol (Score:2)
Welcome to Last Year (Score:1)