Work in progress, Royal Fireworks (a steampunk tiara).

When the next Team NorGa theme was announced (fireworks) for some reason my brain whispered, "tiara," and I've been noodling on what to do ever since. The logical part of my brain (yes, there is one) said, "just make some earrings," and the part of my brain that has been having wacky dreams lately said, "you make a lot of earrings, do something vastly and insanely different."

But a tiara? A steampunk tiara? Do I even know what steampunk is or have I made anything steampunk? Who knows to all those questions but ever since I saw the movie Steamboy like 3 years ago, I've been entranced by something I didn't know existed. I've been a secret steampunk fan apparently. All these other folks have had a huge leap on me but it doesn't bother me...I don't need to compete with that, I just want to make a crazy tiara.

I started with a sketch:


I'm tracking down the cogs or may just use washers, or washers and cogs. I also have some spools and bobbins I'm going to use in the base and I'm going to try to allow as much movement as possible on the spools to give the illusion that you actually have to crank the thing up to make the "fireworks" work.

The next step I'm working on is getting the proportions of the base set up and wire-wrapping the outer edges. I'm leaving the ends rough at the moment but will come back to them during clean up.



I'm working on the front frame next and will post the next round of photos in the early part of the week. I'm enjoying taking my time and putting some crazy detail into this one!