Steampunk Django: High Concept
7 October 2014 02:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dime_novel_heroCosplay is often driven by the concept of the “mashup,” taking one genre or character and combining it with another. Mashups are even more popular within steampunk and can be made high-concept by merely tacking on the word “steampunk” before any other genre or character name. For example: Steampunk Star Wars or Steampunk Boba Fett. You don't really need to explain much beyond that.
But that's the idea I came up with.
The 1966 spaghetti western film “Django” is rated as one of the greatest westerns ever made as well as being one of the most violent films to date. Over 30 plagiarized sequels (four made by the end of 1966) were made and much of the iconic imagery has been borrowed by filmmakers for decades, particularly it seems by Japanese animation with references in “Fist of the North Star”, “Gungrave”, “Trigun”, and “Cowboy Beebop.” There is also Takashi Miike's 2007 own mashup “Sukiyaki Western Django” and Quintin Tarantino's 2012 homage “Django Unchained.”
George Lucas chose the name Jango Fett for his Mandalorian bounty hunter and father of Boba Fett in “Star Wars: Episode 2, Attack of the Clones,” referencing the gunfighter of three dozen years previous.
Mashup Django and Jango. . . steampunked.
I'm not sure when I came up with the idea to build this cosplay, the Star Wars-themed Steampunk Empire Symposium earlier this year, perhaps. But, having lost my job at about the same time I sort of sat on the idea with little more than a a few sketches, some photoshop and some items on my Amazon wish list. For the most part, I was waiting to get a job so that I could have money to buy the props I needed.
The end of August, however, I decided to move ahead anyway. Perhaps I was tired of sitting around doing nothing but applying online for jobs and arguing on the Internet. Maybe the job outlook was looking more promising and I decided to splurge. In part, I may have concluded that spending a little bit of money on something I knew I could accomplish was more important to my mental health than the one monthly utility bill I wasn't going to be able to pay once my unemployment and savings ran out.
The deciding factor, the one that really kickstarted the project, was a fortuitous, entirely random find.
Stay tuned. . . .
But that's the idea I came up with.
The 1966 spaghetti western film “Django” is rated as one of the greatest westerns ever made as well as being one of the most violent films to date. Over 30 plagiarized sequels (four made by the end of 1966) were made and much of the iconic imagery has been borrowed by filmmakers for decades, particularly it seems by Japanese animation with references in “Fist of the North Star”, “Gungrave”, “Trigun”, and “Cowboy Beebop.” There is also Takashi Miike's 2007 own mashup “Sukiyaki Western Django” and Quintin Tarantino's 2012 homage “Django Unchained.”George Lucas chose the name Jango Fett for his Mandalorian bounty hunter and father of Boba Fett in “Star Wars: Episode 2, Attack of the Clones,” referencing the gunfighter of three dozen years previous.Mashup Django and Jango. . . steampunked.
I'm not sure when I came up with the idea to build this cosplay, the Star Wars-themed Steampunk Empire Symposium earlier this year, perhaps. But, having lost my job at about the same time I sort of sat on the idea with little more than a a few sketches, some photoshop and some items on my Amazon wish list. For the most part, I was waiting to get a job so that I could have money to buy the props I needed.
The end of August, however, I decided to move ahead anyway. Perhaps I was tired of sitting around doing nothing but applying online for jobs and arguing on the Internet. Maybe the job outlook was looking more promising and I decided to splurge. In part, I may have concluded that spending a little bit of money on something I knew I could accomplish was more important to my mental health than the one monthly utility bill I wasn't going to be able to pay once my unemployment and savings ran out.
The deciding factor, the one that really kickstarted the project, was a fortuitous, entirely random find.
Stay tuned. . . .
