Steam Punk sorcerer, early designs and influences

I've always loved Jim Henson and Brian Froud's skeksis from The Dark Crystal. The long flowing and mishapen robes of office over the weird bodies give the characters such grape character. I've played with this type of figure before once as a clay wizard and 10 years ago as a puppet. A love creating long leather coats for my steam punk characters so I thought it was time to revisit the idea.

For years I've had a figure from The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (a Tod McFarlane model) sat on my shelf. I thought the two would go togehter really well.

The McFarlane version (right) really exaggerates the body shape and even has goggles.

I want the steam punk figure to have the usual goggles and breathing tubes but also some kind of mechanical bits coming out of his back. The elongated Skeksis type body is ideal for this.

As you can see I've constructed a very basic body and head from card and plastiroc. This is very crude and really only there to give me an idea of the shape so I can build onto it. Now I can play with bits of plastic and start to create the details which will give it character.