Ben Hamby has been a costuming, acting and creative consultant for a considerable amount of time. A founding member of the Sky D.O.G.s, he first encountered Steampunk as a specific, named entity back in 2005 and was immediately inspired to create costumes and character. He is a prolific LARPer, public speaker and prop designer, as well as occasionally a voice-actor, now hired all over the country to lecture on the subjects of Steampunk, DIY, prop and costume design. As author of the “Arcana Imperii” series, he has researched a number of matters both Ecclesiastical and Apocrypha and is acknowledged as a Vatican Scholar. Furthermore, Ben is a counselor at Camp Half Blood: Austin Branch. He can be found via SkyDogs Emporium of Negotiable Ephemera on Facebook.
1. What is your depicted character here in this picture? How did you devise or create this persona? Does it reflect some deeper aspects of yourself or is it a departure entirely from “you”? What were your Inspirations for this character?
Well, for starters, let’s begin with the rest of my crew. Now, that’s kind of a misnomer, because on the Delirium of Grandeur EVERYONE ON BOARD is a Captain. Now, to explain my character, it’s best just to roll on into it. Honestly, it’s easiest just to let him talk about himself, which makes me sound like such a lunatic. But, you know, that’s just the way it is…
“I would be Captain Samuel Taneous, of the Delirium of Grandeur. I have a brother, Simon, so you can guess how we were born. Oh, our poor, poor mother… Our mother is, of course, Lucy Taneous… Big-Girl-Likes-to-Swim. Our father is Winston Taneous…
You can probably tell that we do not take things very seriously on board the Delirium of Grandeur. Otherwise known as the D.O.G, so our shortened colloquial name is the Skydogs! Ooh, aren’t we clever? Now, I hate the term ‘Airship Pirate’ when it comes to describing the Skydogs. We are… let’s call it ‘pre-wreckage, salvage-engineers’! We HAPPEN to know that your airship is about to crash, and we kindly remove your belongings from it. We’re very green that way!”
Ooh! A very low-carbon footprint! Probably because you took all the carbon…
“Exactly!”
Now, stepping back out-of-character, the Captain is a loudmouth, chatterbox salesman. He’s 98.9% me already. The character, like most of these things, is developed organically. We developed this hugely running backstory for all the characters… How they met, how they got on board, why everyone is a captain…
About that last bit: backstory-wise, the reason why we’re all captains is because we’re all lunatics! Now, that came about as I was on the Internet one night. For various reasons, I was looking up asylum records from the late 1800′s in New Orleans. You know, like normal people do… And while I looked through, I noticed that what we would now call a “delusion of grandeur” was instead listed as a “delirium of grandeur.” Honestly, I thought that was the best name ever! It more-or-less reflected the character, as well as the ship.
So the dress and everything for my crew is rather varied, one of our main standing tenants is that we like the idea of clothing as opposed to costume. I would rather look as though I’d just stepped out of an airship rather than sleek, cut lines and perfect… well, everything. If it comes from our ship, it’s going to look a little shady. Even our Symbol, which is a cog with a dog’s skull in the middle of it.
2. What are your short term and long term goals with regards to Cosplay, Steampunk and the creative arts?
First, to make certain the “Dog ‘n Cog will be seen everywhere… eventually! Of course, there’s always the NEXT costume and the NEXT outfit. Whatever we’re working on. It could be a Steampunk beast, it could be Mad-eye Moody. It may not even be in the Steampunk genre, but I digress. Currently we’re working on a Steampunk X-Men project, done from the perspective of Marvel’s Ghost Boxes comic. It’s honestly the first time we’ve decided to replicate something out there as opposed to going our own. Pretty unusual for us.
Next, our long-term goals are more shows, getting our name out there, making more unique products… So my holsters and guns and props will become marketable, of course. We also embroider tons of different things, and we’re just expanding that now. Of course, as an author, my third book is on the way. Which brings me to a tangent…
I finally had someone cosplay as one of my characters. So I should just go ahead and say “I’m done.” That’s the end of it right there, you know? What more do you ask for? “Great, that kid’s dressed up as one of my characters! Now I want everyone to dress up as MY CHARACTERS! Seriously, even the minor ones that no one remembers!”
Does it give you a surreal feeling when you run into someone cosplaying as you or one of your characters?
And this is the part where I really wish I could be all cool about it. When I first saw a kid dressed up as one of my book’s characters, I absolutely LOST MY MIND. I cried like a baby! There are pictures of me doing a flying-tackle on this poor kid and hugging him! He was dressed as a character from one of my novellas, as he hadn’t read all that much. I rectified the situation by giving him copies of the other books I’d written. Rest assured, when the newest one comes out, it’ll be in his hands the moment I see him!
3. Have you had an extensive background in LARP or theatrical performance? if so – What were your favorite experiences? If not, what inspired you to start/get involved?
I’ve been doing Renaissance festivals since 1987. So as far as theatrical experiences, they’ve been outrageously blissful. I’ve worked multiple shows, and I’ve also travelled with a jousting troupe. I lovingly refer to that as FMOTG, or “Fat Man On the Ground…” I did ride, buried my spurs and things, but I was mainly there to be the big, loud, boisterous voice, and master of the lists.
I was also was in a stage show at the Texas Renaissance Festival called “Wine, Women and Song” for three years, which was probably my favorite as far as being twenty-three minutes of tight comedy and song! I worked with several beyond-brilliant actresses.
As far as LARPing goes, I was helping out with slots at Dallas-Fort Worth NERO, and have played characters in those games for years. I unintentionally wrecked a live-action game of Vampire: the Masquerade while dressed as my NERO character, being unaware people were playing at the goth club I was attending (‘The Church’). You see, my war-paint was based on a white tiger, so the players thought a Were-Tiger had entered their game! One made the signal for activating his stealth ability while slamming his back into a wall. I couldn’t help myself… I sauntered on up to him, leaned in close and growled, “I can still smell you.” They proceeded to scramble about … it was glorious!
Anyway, I also played Avant-Garde LARPing, but I really liked the additional role-playing that came with NERO. Once I was able to assist with developing plot, making props, devices, monsters… Basically running D&D and Warhammer games live, I was hooked!
You mentioned a Vampire: the Masquerade game. Did you have any World of Darkness groups you’d like to call out to? Perhaps “One World By Night” or the like?
Honestly, I’ve been out of it for so long. But if they’re still playing at ‘The Church’ in Dallas, I’d just like to say, “Way to go guys! I’ve had more fun messing with your game than I’ve had in some full-length events!” The Storytellers immediately incorporated me and let me run amok, and that was amazing!
4. Please describe your costuming, props and makeup, as depicted here and elsewhere. Are there any particular vendors or craft-techniques you favor?
Absolutely! The vest that I’m wearing is a Raven’s Wood leather vest. They’re extremely expensive and extremely worth it! It’s like the old Curtis Mathis TV ads that I remember… because I’m old… They’re not the most expensive out there, but they make beautiful products, and I wear something of theirs in nearly all of my costumes.
Second, there is a coat, that was built off of the pattern from Johnny Depp’s character in Pirate’s of the Caribbean. It’s a mid-1800′s admiral peacoat. The pants are high-waisted, up to the nipples, from Gentleman’s Emporium. They have an amazing array of items. Some of them are mass-produced, others are high quality. These pants are absolutely the latter.
Now, in Austin, we have hatmakers on 6th Street, a touristy area, and subsequently expensive. But there is also an amazing array of craftsmen throughout the city who are still making olden-time items to this day. I build my old goggles, leather-gear… In the picture, I’m wearing a brass codpiece, because why wouldn’t you? Safety first! It’s hypnotic, which always keeps people gazes right on my crotch! And then I wear square-toe, sanded boots, which are not in-period with the rest of my outfit. However, they LOOK more period than period, which I think counts for a lot more.
5. How much of what you do is seen as “Steampunk?” Do you operate within the tropes of the convention or defy and expand upon the definition?
The entire thing with Steampunk is that it’s own world. What makes your hypothetical reality any more valid than my hypothetical reality? Are we worried about having the proper time period? The one where “Steampunk was real?”
That said, we are pretty heavily within the definition of Steampunk, since we’re cozily nestled in Victorian science-fiction. We don’t time travel, we don’t have things from out-of-period. In the books, I start with inventions from the point where they were conceived. In my universe, Charles Babbage built his difference engine, as opposed to just designing it. It worked, and the Information Age began in the 1840s as opposed to the 1940s. Computer-aided design begins, and subsequent technological advancement is exponentially faster than it was in our world. With that as a basis, you see where the rest of our material comes from.
Regarding inaccuracies in Steampunk, it’s both a literary movement and a “maker” movement. Both of these qualities are contributing factors that created what we see today. Sure, people look at it today and just get excited about the toys, but we forget that the Victorians were already effectively writing Steampunk stories. H.G. Wells’ own Time Machine comes to mind. And when Jules Verne wrote about the Nautilus, submarines didn’t exist at the time! Higher technology was already being grasped for. I think that defines Steampunk more than any movement that might come out, and that we have a much wider and broader playground than some believe.
6. What do you love most about the Cosplay and convention scene?
First off, the creativity. I’m a proud member of the Red Fork Empire. “If you must be a tool, be a Red Fork!” Fighting against the dull, the lack of creativity in the world, and adding everything you can to it… Cosplay embodies this like nothing else! Since it’s become mainstream now, even though it’s been around since time immemorial, that doesn’t change the fact that I’ve seen more innovation and creativity than I’ve seen in some major sci-fi features! People have made armor from foam, made amazing products such as war gloves and simulate things that would otherwise require an advanced knowledge of metalworking or a similar field. Cosplay is what’s making it possible for a kid to watch YouTube and figure out what he needs in the space of the weekend.
7. Where do you see the Conventions, Cosplay and Clockwork themes headed in the future? If you had to make a prediction, what would it be?
I think it will continue to expand, as it has, for a while. That said, I’m already seeing some of the problems that happen when a group becomes sizable. There are some instances of bad blood, jealousy, elitism… The latter we see in professional cosplaying. People making money going from convention to convention, doing for profit what we do for fun. I think eventually that will blow up. It just isn’t sustainable. But with nerd culture the way it is now… well, let’s face it. Nerd culture is now pop culture. It is now popular to do what we do! It’s popular to find a way to Comic-Con and otherwise live the nerd lifestyle. I think prizes (?) are rising to meet that, and I think eventually they will all drop.
8. I’d like for you to talk about your specific body of work, especially as it pertains to Steampunk and cosplay.
Well, on the cosplay side of things, I do Beast among others. I’m working on my very first muscle suit, since it’s easier than developing muscles… We hand-pull the hair through, not unlike a wig, as opposed to simply covering it with fur. Also on the cosplay front I’ve played Mad-Eyed Moody for years. Well, I sold that costume, and am making another. It’ll have a fully articulated, moving eyeball-patch.
As far as Steampunk goes, I’ve continued to hone my leather-crafting skills. This is on top of building aged harnesses, shoulder-holsters, custom pieces for replica guns… I now also do fully accurate replicas of Captain Mal’s holster from Firefly, as well as Zoe’s holster rig, Jayne’s sidearm with metalwork… I just finished making a cast for replicas of Johnny Depp’s gun from Pirates of the Caribbean, and that’s all just surface stuff. We continue to build props, some of which have made it into feature films. Recently I began making replicas of the Hellraiser cubes as lamps! They’ve become pretty popular!
The rest of my group is continuing with embroidery and custom costuming from head-to-toe. The builds are getting more intricate, more complex. We soon hope to have things that not only move as articulated, mobile clockwork, but also are functional. We’re very excited!
9. So… Tell us about Camp Half-Blood!
Okay! For those of you who are familiar with the first books in the Percy Jackson series, I work for Camp Half-Blood, and Rick Riordan has declared “the REAL Camp Half-Blood,” down in Austin, Texas. It’s run by BookPeople, a group headed by a brilliant man: Topher Bradfield! I play Mister D, who is the god Dionysus, sent to Earth and forced to take care of children. This was due to a transgression involving one of Zeus’ favorite nymphs, which I won’t share the details on…
But yes, I basically get to play Mister D, as seen in the books! I’m a raging jerk to the kids, because the original Camp Half-Blood was in Rhode Island. I’m clearly using a Jersey accent. There’s no getting around it: I’m channeling Carl from Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
An in-character example, presuming you’re a new kid at Camp Half-Blood:
“So, anyway… I need to let you kids know that first off, you stink. And I don’t necessarily mean physically, although you do… You’re just really bad at this. Like, you’re REALLY terrible at being demigods. And I’m pretty sure you’re all going to die. And as long as you don’t do it here at the camp, I pretty much don’t care.”
The latest illustrations of Mister D have been modeled after myself, as Ric Reardon met me and said, “Oh yes. YOU’RE Mister D!” Highest compliment I could get!
There are a hundred kids between the ages of nine and fourteen. We have one session where we allow kids who have been attending for years to come back, and I believe the age-cap on that goes all the way up to sixteen. We try to keep that as thirteen to sixteen year olds in general. That’s the portion where we go REALLY crazy with the special effects. Blood, squid… We have martial artists and parkour artists who do our fight coordination and choreography. We’ve had monsters come running down the side of a wall at the poor, terrified children… who love it! We teach them Greek fighting techniques, and because Ric has added Romans to his series, we’ve added Camp Jupiter within Camp Half-Blood! As a result, some of the kids get taught Roman fighting techniques on top of the Greek training.
We have an overarching story that runs the seven weeks of camp, but every week has a goal that the kids have to meet to continue all the way through. Yes, it’s pretty much LARP 101. I’m incredibly proud to be asked back year after year.
And yes, we also did a Star Wars camp, with the blessings of Mister Lucas himself! Everything we do is canon… since our contract pre-dates the Disney buyout. We’re on good terms with them though. We’re working on another camp, for which we’ve already built a full-sized Jedi Starfighter.
10. What do you find has the most mainstream appeal in these genres you work within?
I really don’t think that Steampunk has crested the hill yet. Everybody thought that Justin Bieber would single-handedly kill Steampunk, and that didn’t happen. The future in the Steampunk genre is almost limitless only because of the creativity, based upon concepts rather than patterns. It can’t stagnate until people run out of ideas. We’ve seen the cross-play items, in terms of genre blending. Everything you love, can be combined with something else you love. As long as people keep making things, like a giant Steampunk Iron Man, people will continue to be impressed and wowed.
On LARPing, I remember having to pretend I was doing something else on my way to LARP. Those were the days of having a horrific stigma attached to the word “nerd.” With nerds culture becoming mainstream culture, thanks in part to films like “Knights of Badassdom” and “Role Models,” LARP has run screaming into the spotlight. Both did their thing cleverly and well. Yes, people got laughs out of it, saying “look at the nerds doing their thing!” They also saw the appeal. People in the audience had to say, “They’re living out their fantasy world. How is that any different from me picking characters for my fantasy football league?” It’s all role-play.
LARPing is physical. It’s exhausting. Provided conflict resolution isn’t using rock-paper-scissors or dice, it’s also excellent exercise in the outdoor world! Escapism is escapism no matter what the flavor. It’s all around us, from movies, which don’t have much audience interaction, to the immersive world of a video game. You want to press on and continue the story. When you role-play, and it’s no longer linear, and it’s only limited by your imagination… I LOVE IT! It still has a stigma on it now, but then so did video games and comics five years ago.
11. Have you ever found an experience unnerving, off-putting or sublimely rewarding within the realms of Roleplay and performance? Describe it, if you would.
So I’ll start this story with an interesting fact. Did you know that those sprinkler systems in hotels are very sensitive? Who knew, right? Ah, yeah, how I know that one. I once, with the help of a magician friend, had a wrist-mounted flame thrower. I would tease Boba Fetts at conventions by waggling it at them and saying, “Mine works! Ha ha!” So anyway, I would demonstrate it at ‘How To’ and ‘Maker’ panels, as you can see in the picture there. Yeah, indoors. Not my best idea. Aaaaanyway, I decided that at the next convention I would take it outside. Responsible, right? So my next show was in Oklahoma, a fun show called Tokyo in Tulsa. After doing my Steampunk DIY panel on Saturday evening, I told the attendees that if they wanted, that I would demonstrate it outside. It was already dark out and I led a merry group of patrons out into the parking lot area and was doing… well, what you see in the picture, to the oooohs and aaaaaahs of my new friends, when a guy in a con security shirt walked over. I stopped and asked, “Am I too close to the building?” and he just said, “Can I talk to you for a second?” I said sure and we walked a few steps away. He asked me where I was from, and I said Texas. He responded with kind of a weird, terse expression on his face, “So you crossed state lines with that?” I nodded, feeling a little less like the cool kid rock star that you can’t help but feel like when you have a flamethrower. He blinked a lot, and then said “I’m an off duty police officer, and you do realize that that thing on your arm is a Weapon of Mass Destruction, right? And you crossed state lines with it…you DO know that by the Homeland Security laws, that makes you a terrorist?” I immediately disconnected the fuel canister and threw it across the street and said, “No, I’m a guy with a really weird lighter,” with the straightest face I could muster. He chuckled and said, “Smart. Go pick that up.” This is the reason I no longer carry WMDs to shows.
Whenever you’re doing performance, you’re playing a character. You’re out there, creating new facets of that character. You may have guidelines, but in the end, the field is still wide open for you. That being said, sometimes people think that character is you. That can get quite twitchy and unnerving. The character I played for “Wine, Women and Song” was a VERY wacky character. As a 16th century Italian character, he was skilled in… various arts. Now, I was married at the time, but that didn’t keep people from trying to take advantage of said arts.
Now as far as rewarding moments go, I remember being the master of ceremonies at the Texas Renaissance Festival. We’d have theme weekends, differing every week. For the last weekend, it was Celtic Christmas. For this, I play Father Christmas. It’s a completely different experience from playing a mall-Santa. There are moments where the kids would run up, each having written their names on a giant whiteboard, allowing me to call out the children by name. You’d watch them change from the stereotypical cringe of a child being forced into a Santa photo, and truly begin to believe that THIS was the real deal right in front of them! You get to FEEL the belief! Now, there is some heartbreak, such as kids wanting their parents to get back together. When kids would ask for world peace, I’d tell them, “I can only give that if everyone asks for it.”
The most rewarding moment came after a kid was done asking for stuff, and went over to my elves, saying “we found him!” An elf asked him what he meant. “Every year, I go to see Santa. And every year, I get one of his helpers. But this year, we found him!” To this day, I still get chills, goosebumps just thinking about that.
12. Please describe your sources of inspiration beyond academic influences. What sparked your creativity within this milieu?
Your first inspiration for anything is the creativity of the people you meet. You see something amazing [that] someone’s made, and talk to them about what they made. So you go off, and make your own unique thing, which in some way branches off of their thing.
My first Steampunk spark was in 2004 at DragonCon. I met Danny and the Outlanders, who were already doing this Steampunk thing. Now, I’d always loved the aesthetic, but I’d never known it had a name. I went from there and built my very first, turn-of-the-century outfit from everything I could find. From there, I wanted to make a gun to go with it. I did some research, looked around, and immediately had tons of inspiration.
LARPing has that wonderful, underlying structure where someone else has created a world. They’ve generated a universe for you to play in. And then you go attend an event! For those interested, I’d suggest finding a Nero chapter, joining monster camp, becoming an NPC, and becoming something that inspires other people! Yes, you might get crushed a hundred times as a goblin, but you’ll learn the system, and you’ll get the inspiration to create your own concept later! As an NPC, you also get sent in to meet people you might otherwise have never interacted with. And you can play other things, such as the old man with a secret! If you’re like me, you can get into the storytelling aspect of it all. It’s all a feedback loop, and my initial concepts come from it, talking to other people about what they would love to see and what they’ve seen too much of. It’s the best jumping off point, as opposed to simply replicating something.
13. What is your creative process? Would you describe it as hands on, solitary, collaborative?
Um… YES. All of the above. There are times when I don’t work well without others around me working, and there are times when I like to bounce back ideas with people. This is basically how my books are written, co they’re all collaborative projects.
As far as building things, I often just dive into the research. I hyperfocus, and return to the real world six hours later, slightly dizzy. My creative process is all over the map, mostly because my mediums are all over the map.
14. Do you have a Final Word for our readers and attendees?
Don’t stop. Can’t stop. Won’t stop. Do not desert your Art. You’re going to make something, and it’s possibly going to suck, but you made it. That makes it Art! Keep going. Everything that every artist does keeps going. Whenever you stop doing that, whenever you give up on it… that’s giving up on a piece of yourself.
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