Steam Punk Revolver Concept

My first attempt at a fully-rendered steampunk revolver concept using only Adobe Photosop and a mouse.

Hello readers! Above you will find what is my first stab at a fully-rendered image of a gun concept with a leaning in style towards that modern zeitgeist - steampunk. This is a digital painting using nothing but Adobe Photoshop CS2 from start to finish. Didn't even use a pen and paper to start with a sketch (big deal for me). The idea behind this steampunk revolver is that it is more elegant and whimsical than perhaps useful. With its golden hue and bright luster, this is a weapon of stately position and/or ceremony.

Still trying to define how a steampunk gun would work; to make it "steam"-ish. Would the gun itself be powered by some kind of compressed gas or would the bullets be highly-compressed gas capsule projectiles? I plan on doing more concepts of steampunk pistols like this and perhaps I will think more about how these would work. I have seen other sites where their steampunk guns are actually lasers - !? Well, to each his own in art, but my OCD kicks in and I cannot think that a truly steampunk weapon would be energy based like that.

Anyways, enjoy the work and as always, comments and feedback are welcome! Here are some other artists that have done  steampunk gun concepts : Gregory Fisher, Hatton Cross Steampunk, Arjun Gupte,