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#1
Tactile / Re: The 2d Art Thread
Last post by J. Wilhelm - Today at 01:56:42 AM
A few more images. This time a brief fan fiction / art collection revolving around the Anime series "Last Exile."  So much time has passed that by now this series is "vintage," so not too many people know it, depending on their age.

Prologue
QuoteDear Claudius,

As humans have returned from Prester into the chaos that Earth has become, more details are emerging from the vaults of the Last Exile ship.

Last week I stumbled upon a holographic memory, no doubt taken by the late evil mistress, Maestro Delphine, which clearly shows that Master Dio  wasn't her only sibling.  Apparently, Delphine Eraclea also had a younger sister.

I extracted and attached to this transmission a 2D section of the hologram; it's a portrait of Young Master Dio, before he had been assigned as a ward of Lucciola. The metadata of the hologram is simply titled "Little Dio and Aelia.". They must have separated by the time Dio was assigned a warden. I don't think Lucciola knew her, but I can't be sure.

Sadly I can't say more about this finding. No one knows what became of Aelia, and with an older sister so evil, one can only fear for her fate.

Please brother, wait for me before departing from Earth. I'll soon return with the last shipments from Prester.

Sincerely,

G. Alcimus Caelestius

A holographic slice portrait of a very young Dio Eraclea with an unknown and even younger sister, Aelia:



We also have several age-progression portraits, of the evil princess Delphine of the House Eraclea, who became the leader, or "Maestro" of The Guild. It is clear from the Anime, that Delphine is much older that Dio. I'm assuming a young adult Delphine posed for the second hologram, presumably at the same time when the portrait of Dio and Aelia was taken.




At this time, her and Dio's parents were alive, and Lucciola had not made an entrance into the story line. It is not known what happened, but vaguely suggested in Last Exile that she had some nefarious intent toward her parents and that upon their disappearance, she took the reigns of The Guild. In my Fan-fic, I presume that she was also somehow involved in the disappearance of Aelia - perhaps she hid Aelia or someone took Aelia away, to be raised by someone else for some unknown reason - this is stealing a bit from the Star Wars plot where Luke and Leia are separated. One can imagine someone trying to protect Aelia... The latter would have happened of course on the artificial planet Prester, before the timeline shown on the anime,and thus before the Last Exile ship was activated.

Then we have a slightly older Delphine, perhaps already a Maestro, and this portrait is taken at the time when the parents disappear and the slave Lucciola is assigned to be the warden of Dio. Note that Delphine is already wearing the golden eye makeup of the Guild. The anime shows fleeting memories of the time when Lucciola was first introduced to Dio, as his ward. Delphine would not have had any time to raise Dio, and that is why Lucciola was needed. Dio and Lucciola became fast friends thereafter, until many years later, when Lucciola allowed Dio to escape the Guild, and he sacrificed himself by confronting Delphine (I have yet to make a portrait of Lucciola).


In the last image, I try to make a more accurate representation of Delphine as she was shown in Last Exile, already mature and visibly deteriorated, due to her slow descent into madness.  I presume the portrait was taken sometime after she captured and began torturing Captain Alexander Row of the Silvana, to extract from him the four "Mysteria," poems that unlocked the Last Exile ship.  Just before she died at the hands of Alexander, she was confronted by Lucciola, who had gone to her chambers after Dio's bloody Rite of Passage which would turn Dio into Delphine's legitimate successor as leader of The Guild

Lucciola aimed to force her to let Dio go. Lucciola had to disable various guards before getting to Delphine, and when she and Lucciola were alone, Delphine was most intrigued as to why Lucciola would go through all this trouble, especially since Lucciola was not much more than a slave. "What is Dio to you, Lucciola?" she asked.  "I am Dio's friend," he replied, before being disintegrated upon Delphine's demented stare. "Wondeful, Lucciola!" she laughed maniacally after Lucciola had completely disintegrated.

"What is Dio to you, Lucciola?"

~ ~ ~
#2
Off Topic / Re: The Brassgoggles Model Mak...
Last post by The Bullet - Yesterday at 10:08:02 PM
Did you check if any part of the motor is connected to the chassis?
Maybe the wires from the loco to the tender are crossed and causing a short when you try to run it.

Test: Run it on battery like in the video.
While running, use a piece of wire to connect loco and tender wheels on the dame side of the loco one after the other.
A possible short is easy to find that way.
#3
Off Topic / Re: The Brassgoggles Model Mak...
Last post by James Harrison - Yesterday at 03:49:41 PM

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Cq3HFpizO1E

She lives!

Err... not quite.  The motor sparks into life quite happily enough when the battery is put directly on the brushes.  I've even been able to get the wiring from the loco pickups to the motor, successfully. 
Where it all falls down is that when I put the loco on the rails, the motor refuses to turn.  Or, at best, it jerks forward a few millimetres and then stalls. 

My best guess is, judging from the noise when it is running, is that it sorely needs a service and a clean.  You can see on the video it's hardly going flat out, I think it's clean enough to barely work but not do much beyond that.  So I think so far as the motor is concerned my next steps are going to be to carefully disassemble it, clean everything with isopropyl alcohol to get any dirt off, have a good look for any fluff or dust caught in the mechanism and change the brushes.
#4
Tactile / Re: That 'big project' I've be...
Last post by James Harrison - Yesterday at 10:10:38 AM
5 years ago today I was picking up my new keys to my new house from the estate agent and then walking through the threshold for the first time as a homeowner...

... where, exactly, have those 5 years gone?

... and also, if I know then that 5 years later the thing would be not quite half done, would I have started it in the first place?
#5
Off Topic / Re: GAAAAAHHHHHH Mk.VI: The Re...
Last post by Ceir - February 07, 2025, 08:02:43 PM
A very modest gahh: game publishers, I am all in favor of living rulebooks for download. However, a) please make them easily found on the game's website, and 2) please for the love of fnord have a printer-friendly version. All the pretty burns a lot of ink.
#6
Tactile / Re: That 'big project' I've be...
Last post by James Harrison - February 05, 2025, 07:41:03 PM
I think the best way forward right now is to focus on the bits of the floor I can reasonably access, and the bits of skirting board I can reasonably get to, and sand them down.  I've already got one wall ready to start putting back to rights, but obviously that's only worthwhile doing if the next messy bit is far enough away that it's not going to ruin it.

So.  The back wall is already ready to go, the gable end is cleared down as far as the fireplace and chimneybreast, and that just leaves the party wall and the front wall.  Ignore the front wall for the moment, the party wall has had about half of the paper taken down (leaving bits behind the dress, the wardrobe and the radiator that I can't get to yet).

That leaves the floor and I've practically cleared a strip along the back wall, up as far as the fireplace and started back toward the wardrobe on the party wall.  I think if I do just a bit more of that I can reasonably say I'm in a decent position to start putting everything back together.  Once that first wall is done I can move everything around and access a new bit to start over again.

This is going to be a long job, I think.
#7
Off Topic / Re: Bird Box
Last post by The Bullet - February 05, 2025, 11:35:36 AM
Here we go again.

Temperatures below zero, but they are building a nest.
Quite early this year.
Here´s the link:
https://ipcamlive.com/65dc65a9b6422
#8
Off Topic / Re: GAAAAAHHHHHH Mk.VI: The Re...
Last post by rovingjack - February 05, 2025, 06:50:47 AM
take a wild guess what's triggering me right now.
#9
Tactile / Re: first project
Last post by J. Wilhelm - February 03, 2025, 01:14:46 AM
Welcome to the forum, Gomez!  Just a question: have you given a thought about what type of system you're going to install?

I've made a number of Steampunk computer systems, including two tower style l PCs (both micro-ATX format, AMD Athlon 64, one in the shape of an old early 1900s telephone, and one which I currently use with Linux in the shape of a clock). I also made a laptop "mod" for Sony America around 2011, and my latest is an HTPC in the shape of a boombox with a small Windows 10 Pro "PC Stick" and a 7" LCD display. All of these had very different requirements, relative to how you fit them into the "furniture" piece.

As von Corax said, ventilation will be very important, and which type of system you use will determine the type of ventilation you need to implement.

As far as the style, like von Corax said, you're off to a good start.  I find Steampunk is far more believable if it's unassuming (not pretentious).  We have a saying: Don't put a cog on it and call it Steampunk.". Too many non functional gadgets glued on it don't really make it Steampunk.

If people would have had computers in the 19th century, for sure they'd look like furniture!
#10
Tactile / Re: first project
Last post by von Corax - February 03, 2025, 12:11:33 AM
Hello, gomez99, and welcome to Brass Goggles!

If I understand you correctly, you are asking for advice on making this project Steampunk? In my opinion what you have in mind is already very Steampunk. You only need attend to the details, such as a nice wood bezel around the monitor, and (if you're very ambitious) an appropriate keyboard and mouse. There have been a number of Steampunk PC projects over the years, and a few of the threads might still have images. (We don't host the images ourselves, and numerous third-party image hosting services have, over time, ceased to exist.)

My own advice, such as it is, would be to pay close attention to cooling, in particular for both the motherboard and the hard drives or SSDs.

We look forward to seeing this project unfold.