What if I'm completely knew?

[MyHooptie]

I'm going into Steampunk tinkering completely new with no prior experience or knowledge. What's the most general outline of Steampunk, like what are the requisite skills I need, Welding? Sewing? What tools do i need? I really want to join you guys but I don't even know where to start.

[TimeTinker]

Start by taking some time to read through the boards.  Do some research.  get a feel for the place and what steampunk is about round here.

Tactile - making
Metaphysical - thinking and chewing over ideas
Anatomical - costuming (amongst other things)
Aural ocular - media (music, film, TV etc)
Textual - books

Have a good long look around - you will find many of your questions answered then you can come back with some more specific to help your understanding.

Good luck.

[Narsil]

Your best bet is to have a browse of the forum and see what aspects particularly interest you. There are a huge number of different approaches so any attempt to summarize is likely to be a bit misleading. Even just within the category of making there are all kinds of distinct activities; fully functional mechanisms and devices, sculpture, jewelery, clothing, costumes, props and models to name but a few.

As you can see the range of potential skills is huge so it's usually a case of homing in on what really appeals to you personally.

My own experience is that, once you've got to grips with a few practical skills the learning process gets easier and easier as you gain confidence and learning becomes a natural thing. Also even quite unrelated things like sewing and welding often have a lot in common in terms of basic things like hand-eye coordination and the ability to mentally assemble individual components into a 3 dimensional whole.

In terms of practical skills on piece of advice i would give is to put the time in to learning to do things properly. Particularly in the early stages the end result doesn't really matter that much, its the experience which counts. With this in mind it;s often best to choose reasonably challenging but not overly complex projects.

[Mr Peter Harrow, Esq]

Start small and work up, skills and tools and materials for one project can be used in subsequent more complex projects. As you get more confident you can judge how much you want to extend yourself on a particular project.

The point of making is to enjoy it, both the physical process and the finished project.

[von Corax]

I'll repeat the advice to browse through the boards, to see what others have done and are doing. See what sort of projects interest you, then choose something simple to start out with — the requisite skills and tools for your chosen project should immediately make themselves obvious. After that you can work up to more difficult projects, expanding your toolkit and skillset with each one.

Most importantly, for Cog's sake don't try to do everything at once. Steampunk is a long-term undertaking and a very broad subject, and honestly most of us won't live long enough to try to do everything at all, let alone all at once.

[Hez]

You might want to search "steampunk" on flickr to see a broad range of images to get your imagination started.  decide what fascinates you then figure out what skills you need to get/make/modify your own version.

[Mr Peter Harrow, Esq]

I'll repeat the advice to browse through the boards, to see what others have done and are doing. See what sort of projects interest you, then choose something simple to start out with — the requisite skills and tools for your chosen project should immediately make themselves obvious. After that you can work up to more difficult projects, expanding your toolkit and skillset with each one.

Most importantly, for Cog's sake don't try to do everything at once. Steampunk is a long-term undertaking and a very broad subject, and honestly most of us won't live long enough to try to do everything at all, let alone all at once.

Except possibly Herr Doktor

[von Corax]

I'll repeat the advice to browse through the boards, to see what others have done and are doing. See what sort of projects interest you, then choose something simple to start out with — the requisite skills and tools for your chosen project should immediately make themselves obvious. After that you can work up to more difficult projects, expanding your toolkit and skillset with each one.

Most importantly, for Cog's sake don't try to do everything at once. Steampunk is a long-term undertaking and a very broad subject, and honestly most of us won't live long enough to try to do everything at all, let alone all at once.

Except possibly Herr Doktor

I did say "most of us."