Caravanning the Neo-Silk Road

Harold got a makeover and a friend!

My entry for the second round of the Steampunk Pageant.
Miss Beatrice Barnes, anthropologist, is caravanning across the Neo-Silk Road on her trusty robo-camel, Harold.

The initial idea came to me while I was actually riding a camel through the Gobi desert! I was thinking about how odd camels are and how awesome a robo-camel would look, and I decided I needed to make one. When the second round theme came up, I decided it would be a perfect design for Beatrice.
Harold was made with the Chevaline from Stephenson's "The Diamond Age" in mind.

My favorite bits are Harold's steam puff, seat, and controls and Beatrice's pith helmet and boots.
The hardest part was actually Harold's tether. It gave me such problems, and it looks so simple and dumb!

Ok, random tangent - Seriously, Steampunk does not mean throwing random gears on everything. Just because it looks cool doesn't mean it works. For example, a middle class professional has absolutely no need for any of the following: goggles, cogs, laser pistols, robotic limbs. And think about it, our society is run on electricity, but we don't hang light bulbs all over ourselves, and the majority of the population aren't amputees wearing prosthetic arms. It just doesn't make sense. This "gears for the sake of gears" fad needs to end. Take it from someone who has dressed like a character from a post-apocalyptic Dickens' novel for the past five years - people will actually laugh at you if you just glue gears to a top hat and call it Steampunk.
</rant> Sorry.

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