My BioShock-Inspired Custom Steampunk Frame

John and I are working on the steampunk room again, which still has a lot of smaller projects to go before we can call it officially "finished."

Just to catch you up, here's what the room looks like so far:

 

(Except Claptrap is now in that right corner.)

I went looking for some big art for that wall by the treadmill desk (since most of what I buy is tiny to conserve wall space) and found this gorgeous skyscape by Tyler Edlin Art over on DeviantArt:

Tyler didn't have a print available, but when I asked he very kindly listed it for me in his Society6 shop. (Here's the link, if you'd like your own.)

The largest size available, a huge 40X23 matte print, was less than $70. SCORE.

So then we just needed a frame to do that loveliness justice.

I got the idea to make the frame look more like a steampunky window/porthole than a frame. Then I found the perfect inspiration piece:

That cork board is from Tokyo's Disney Sea, which has an entire section of the park filled with drool-worthy steampunk goodness. Here's the Flickr link with a few more pics.

John was over the moon to have an exact picture to reference, since usually I'm asking him to build stuff, "Like this, only more steampunky - and can you make it feel more, I dunno, orange? Not LOOK orange - just feel it?"

Yeah. I'm a peach. He tells me all the time.

Ok, enough suspense: here's our finished frame!

 

 Ooooh. Aaaaaah.

It has a real BioShock feel to it with those Deco corners, right? And the steampunky rivets? Mmmm. Pretty sure this is my favorite frame in the house now. Plus with it right next to the treadmill desk, I get that "window-view" feeling while I'm working there, which is pretty sweet.

Hit that "read more" down there to see how we did it.


 Now, progress shots!

First John cut out the general outline of the frame from MDF. Here we're testing the fit on the print.

Next he layered on the corner details and edging, gluing them in place. The triangular accents are thin Masonite, and the "rivets" are 2 different sizes of furniture plugs. (He drilled holes for each plug, so they'd fit flush.) 

He also routed the back, so there'd be a lip for the print & backer board to fit into.

Sanded & primed.

Next John traced the inner edge of the frame onto acid-free matte board, and cut that out:

Then we placed the board onto the art print, traced it, and cut THAT out:

Finally we used acid-free spray adhesive (which we didn't even know existed 'til last week) to stick the art down to the mat board - which was tricksy to line up, lemme tell ya. It made it easy to just have the one piece to pop in, though, since we decided it didn't need any glass:

Spray-painted gold.

A quick note about glass: I'm learning that a lot of art - especially matte prints - can look AMAZING without glass. Even a cheap print can suddenly look like a real painting without the glare of glass in front of it! So now I'm eying all my frames and debating de-glassing a few more. :)

The gold base looked pretty great as-is, but to give it a sense of age we added some mottled orange glaze, and then I hit all the edges & rivets with a brownish black paint, quickly wiping the paint off again as I went. That extra shadowing really makes the details pop:

 

And that's it! All told it took John 2 afternoons in the garage to put this together, and since he had enough wood scraps the only thing he had to buy were the furniture plug "rivets."

 ::happy sigh:: I could stare at this all day.

 Oh, and since I'm another year older today, I'm calling this my birthday present. :)

(It's funny; John's been asking for weeks what I want to do for my birthday, but the sad/happy thing is, I can't imagine having more fun doing anything else most days. So we're gonna work on more steampunk room stuff, and maybe try to make some gluten-free brownies [because ok, ok, Doc, YOU WIN THIS ROUND], and it's gonna be awwwwwesome.)

*****

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