Jabberwock Pt.15: If Only It Could Fly...

So this was another leap on from the Dieselpunk tank, and an attempt to make the monster fly.  Aeroplanes powered by steam are a nice staple of the Steampunk genre, but probably wouldn't actually work from a logical point of view.  Too heavy, and the same problems about needing to keep the boiler level as was identified with the Airfix Monster.  But something which looked like a First World War bomber, all canvas and strapping, with early piston-engines, might have looked the part for a machine 'dragon'.

Back in the dim and distant past, I designed a few different flying machines for the Steampunk "Century Survey" project, such as the staple of the genre, the dirigible.  Not really suitable for this build, but a starting point nonetheless.

So onto a Biplane or Triplane design, something not unlike a Vickers Vimmy, one of the earliest bombing planes used by the RAF.

A slight diversion though, an earlier model from an earlier project.  This was inspired by various mythical animals, Sleipnir (legendary 8-legged horse of Odin) and the Pegasus.  And especially by a statue in Wednesbury of the former.

The model was built for a project in 2003, and has cropped up in a few projects since.  I dug it out for this juncture, to see how a more 'realistic' metal-looking creature might appear, a complete break away from the vehicle-inspired designs...

It didn't really lead anywhere directly, but it did provide some avenues for explorations...

The machine aspect needed exploring after all, so the model would be a right lash-up of some spare laser-cut bits from work (spooky wings designed for a story chair for one of the Year 11 projects), cheapie Spitfire kits, and lots of odds and ends of model kits.

The main body of the plane was simply a length of dowel, profiled a little on a belt sander, with a suitable head shape from ply bunged on the front...

For the 'skin' of the monster (the tattered remnants of the canvas covering of the airframe) I ended up using a pair of tights, for a slightly see-through look.  And my word, did I get some odd looks buying them...

PROS

Actually looked rather good, and got the whole ‘dragon’ motif that I was thinking of for the Jabberwock.

CONS

Doesn’t work in a woodland setting, and it didn't scream Steampunk as much as the other designs, which was a technical requirement of the commission.  Plus the sculpture would need to be bloody immense to work.  Ah well, it was back to the drawing board…

Jabberwock Pt.14: Unnexplored Concepts...

A Dieselpunk diversion… This was not necessarily going to be something which informed the direction of the project, more just me mucking around with some slightly more ‘modern’ looking kit parts.  As the name suggests, Dieselpunk is a logical leap along the time line from Steampunk, embracing the diesel age, art deco, and so on as its aesthetic.  If I’d done the ‘full’ Steampunk project last time around, there were plans to show the encroaching diesel age of Britannia in 1901, a logical progression of technology at the time.

The idea is broadly similar to the tank-crane from the earlier model, but with rather more modern kit, and things like aircraft parts incorporated. 

PROS

Looked good, and acquiring more modern looking materials to build the monster might have been easier.

CONS

Still very large, and there is the added logical problem; a machine like this would look a lot more monstrous and hideous to Victorian eyes, but then if it existed in that world, contemporaneous with the time line, then there wouldn’t be any petrol/diesel for it to run on.  At least with the steam version of the monster, the elemental fuel requirements of coal/wood and water would be in abundance in the environment of Wonderland.

Another diversion… thinking along the lines of the water-dwelling monster.  I just liked the idea of some sort of ‘serpent’ which lives in a lake and which snatches victims from the shore.  It definitely had its limitations as a concept, but Rydal Hall has much in the way of watercourses and lakes, and I liked the idea of getting a rowing boat or similar, and building something onto it…

In the end though, both designs were dismissed as impractical in this case, and not properly fitting the brief.  Still, sketches don't cost owt, and bits and pieces from the designs made it into other developments....

Finally, another diversion which built out of the Dieselpunk sketch, and a slightly unhinged take on Alice, after I'd watched Mad Max one too many times...

Jabberwock Pt.13: Time for Tea

This was one of those ideas, which snowballs, slightly out of control then has to be reined in...

Alongside the building of the actual sculpture, an exhibition of some of the development work was going to be on the cards, and I was toying with having a working miniature of the Jabberwock design, which could be built from cheap train set parts.  Basically it started off as a loose idea, then various sketches explored the idea further.

Plans for features such as a bridge were taken from some of my other railway modelling projects...

And then more details from the books were included in the plan.

At this point the idea of having something themed around the Mad Hatter/Tea Party came to the fore, as I had in fact designed a laser-cut tea tray for work, as a potential project with some of the students (building a scene onto a tea tray).  With the test-cut lying around the workshop, it seemed too good an opportunity to ignore.

The final design sketch.

The laser cutter churning out the original tea tray prototype.

The size of the tray severely limited the size of the model, so with the need for tight curves, I turned to some older 'toy' bits, from XTS train sets.  The baseplates were cannibalised for the tracks, which were then sanded and cleaned-up a bit.

The basis of the Jabberwock would be the battery-operated chassis of the trains from the set, with odds and ends from the scrapbox.

So what happened?  Well, the project got to a reasonably advanced stage when I had to drop it, as it was distracting too much from the actual build of the sculpture.  I've got the part-done bits knocking around though, and at some point I will try and finish it off, but in the meantime it's just an unexplored avenue for the project.

Jabberwock Pt.12: Playing Trains

Wanting to try the idea of a train-based Jabberwock but with more of a Dragon sort of a look, and inspired somewhat by the vertical-boiler crane at Llanberis, I once again delved into the bits box and threw this together.  The basis is a Poundland train set, one of about two-dozen acquired over the years as parts donors for other projects.  Detailing parts are the usual mongrel collection of bits from other kits.  The locomotive is an experimental take on the 'Vertical Boiler' narrow gauge design once again, but super sized somewhat compared to real-world examples from the UK.

I also wanted to make this functional, just for fun.  I had a vague idea of having the model operational as part of the exhibition showing the development of the project at the site.

PROS

It was a more manageable and ‘compact’ design, certainly, using a vertical-boiler, narrow gauge locomotive as the basis for a rail mounted crane, and it fit broadly in with the world of the Looking Glass where (as the book documents) there is at least one railway.

CONS

Well the main one was that there is no railway at Rydal Hall… Which would mean having to lay at least 10ft of railway track.  Not being an engineer for Network Rail I don’t have that sort of thing lying around either, nor was I confident I could make a fake one.  Plus it might have looked odd, having a short length of railway track just sat in a formal garden, going nowhere.  I suppose the monster could have been built to lay its own track, but that would have been complicated to represent and in any case, a machine which lays its own tracks is pretty much a tank, when all is said and done, and I’ve already been looking at that angle…

Then there was the ‘logical’ problem.  A monster that was mounted on rails could only ever run on those rails, and what threat is there in a monster which is effectively stuck in one place?  Everything would just avoid it.  So whilst this had been fun to develop the idea, it seemed something of a dead end...

Jabberwock Pt.11: Llanberis Slate Museum research visit.

So another research visit to a museum was clearly in order, and this time it was a return to the National Slate Mining Museum in Llanberis, North Wales- a regular haunt when in Wales and desperate for something free to do with the Childs.  Actually that rather undersells it, as it is a terrific museum, and a proper collection of industrial bits and pieces… none of that stupid push-button malarkey here.  Formerly the workshops for the gargantuan slate quarry which once existed here, the buildings are now a rather nice museum, with lots of old machinery which could provide inspiration for this project.

A possible solution to making the sculpture a train-based design?  I really like the rustic look of these sleepers, something like this might be possible for the final build if I go down that route...

Amongst the many items on display was this beast- it is a self-propelled, railway-mounted crane.  Vertical boiler, long crane arm, stabilising ‘legs’… a lot of features which would be very suitable for inclusion in the Jabberwock build.  The vertical-boiler angle is something I hadn’t considered yet either, which would free the monster away from the large, conventional-outline steam locomotive and have the added bonus of making the monster appear taller, more akin to the pose of the monster in the book illustration; certainly more chance of it towering over the viewer rather than skulking.

I really like the texture of the machine, all rust and abandonment, exactly the sort of colours I'd want on the final sculpture...

There was definite food for thought there... time to do some more sketching and model building!