Paintedfigs.com - Armorcast Steampunk Buddha

Religion and art are inseparable. Religion drives passion, and passion sooner or later vents into art.

The chaps at Armorcast do some lovely steampunk terrain, and they do something wondering with this piece -- their steam punk Buddha.

I bought one a while ago. I'm a Buddhist (of sorts), and I've always been deeply impressed and inspired by  religious art. The staff were taken aback by the piece - Sri Lankan Buddhists are very conservative about depictions of the Buddha, and just yesterday someone called this "an insult against Lord Buddha."

I pointed out to the staff that the Buddha is depicted in different ways by different people. In Thailand his earlobes are crazy:

 And do we really want to tell a billion Chinese that they've got his eyes wrong?

They saw the point (though for the most part, they didn't like it).

I'm also quite the sucker for falling love - that's another passion that drives art (especially when its getting nowhere...). The steampunk buddha became a project for someone special, that I worked on for about a year.

A friend of mine, the awesome Shyam Hettiarachchi, is jewelry designer. She got and set the stones that you see here.

This was a one-off, sorry, I ain't doing one of these ever again! But I feel the need to share something from my own life here, not just work projects.

Hope you like it.

Navin, Paintedfigs.com