Steamboy's Steamball

the DOCTOR

the DOCTOR

Sr Member
last weekend I finally watched the Anime film 'Steamboy', lovely Steampunk tale, wonderful looking, and with a coherant plot and pretty good dialogue!

One of the key pieces of kit are the Steamballs: portable pressure vessels containing a near inexhaustable supply of high pressure steam; nice looking objects, and fairly easy to reproduce, and having just taken delivery of some clear acrylic Christmas baubles, one of which was 160mm (6 1/4") across, I thought I'd make one:

As seen in the film:
Steamboy.jpg

In primer:
CIMG2038.jpg

CIMG2037.jpg

As well as the acrylic bauble, the flange is 5mm acrylic, the rail is heat formed ABS, the spigot is ABS with four plastic BBs, and the 'lid' is made from off cuts of waste pipe, styrene sheet and ABS tube.

Oh, and nine 20mm M6 nuts and bolts!

Just a couple of small details to sort out, and then some colour, and it's done!

Needs a stand, though...
 
Perfect replica if I could say it!:thumbsup

Now with a nice paintjob it will be killer!:cool
 
ooh, impressive. That looks spot on (aside from the little details you're working on ^_^)! Can't wait to see the finished piece
 
Great Work :thumbsup :thumbsup :thumbsup

I love this film as much as anything that Leiji Matsumoto ever did!

Been meaning to make one of these ("heard" about one 2nd hand that was for sale in Japan 2 years ago (thru a friend at NYC Toyshow)), IIRC.

The film is very well done- great story, characters, and design.

Kudos!
 
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Love this movie as well, and agree that is a great realization of the ball. Cant wait to see the final paint and weathering.

Andy
 
there is an excellent book on steamboy, I got it as an import form Forbidden Planet in London, was about 40 quid though. YOu need this bbok inyour life if you wanted to make the Steamball!!
Nice work
D
 
I've never seen the movie, although I've intended to watch it for years, just never eventuated. Very impressive work.
 
great work, i am also working on one. Just finished the 2 halves and need to do the addon bits for mine to finish it.

again, beautiful work :):thumbsup
 
Thanks, everyone! It is such a simple build, to be honest, but it looks so very effective!

Finished off the final detail, the large nut and valve affair on the top:

CIMG2040.jpg

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Close up:
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CIMG2041.jpg

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Just a quick polish, and then I can give it some colour!​
 
Looks great. The ONLY inaccurate issue I notices was the flat screw on the turn handle in stead of the hexagonal head. You have done an incredible job on this one, awesome work for a piece like this.
 
tripoli said:
Looks great. The ONLY inaccurate issue I notices was the flat screw on the turn handle in stead of the hexagonal head. You have done an incredible job on this one, awesome work for a piece like this.
Click to expand...


Thank you very much, and well spotted! I still need to get an M5 nut and bolt for the handle, but that's just about it!

:)
 
CustomCreations said:
there is an excellent book on steamboy, I got it as an import form Forbidden Planet in London, was about 40 quid though. YOu need this bbok inyour life if you wanted to make the Steamball!!
Nice work
D
Click to expand...


Can you give the name and/ or the ISBN of the book?

I have the 'photonovel' of the book, and haven't seen anything like the 'Perfect Manuals' that were done in the '80's for Space Cruiser Yamato.


Would be appreciated.
 
Ill have a look at home for you.
Its purely non-english, has a section on the research they did, and loads of awesome line drawings of props, machines etc for the film.
The unused designs for the bad-guy's steam engine are very cool.
 
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