Steampunk Underwater Easter egg with lights inside

 I started this build on Friday...  Its been such a blast.  I purchased this HUGE 30cm / 12" tall egg at a craft expo on Thursday and imediately knew what I was going to do with it... I had molded "Octoman" as I call him from the Stamperia mold and realised that the giant eggs I have been using as bases for the last 3 eggs, would not do him justice.  So, when I saw this giant hollow egg, my brain went into overdrive!

 I have fallen in love with this paper and mold range by Antonis for Stamperia called Mechanical Sea World.

 The pink and blue bits with clear pipes are part of a DIY straw set for kids... I purchased them to use as pipes in my project.

 The molded items, plastic leaves and pipes got a coat of spray paint and were left to air for 24 hours, while they were doing their thing outside... I cut the two port holes in the egg to fit the clear domes and primed the egg with gesso and made texture in it using a crackle stamp.

The rice paper can be torn apart along a wet line drawn with water on a paint brush.  This gives a lovely soft edge which dissapears when it is glued down.

 I used the rice paper to cover the inside of the egg, using soft gel medium as mu glueboth under and over the rice paper.

 The molded things and pipes got layers of acrylic paint sprayed onto them in Lime

 Turquoise and leather

 They look rather nice just with these 3 colours on them.

 The aging cream is not available from Stamperia yet... so I made a plan and used Annie Sloan dark wax to get colour into the grooves.  Then I used Finns Brushed Iron Metallique wax over the top to make the pipes look metallic.

 I did the same with these guys... Above is before I added Turquoise satin Opal magic wax instead of the silver.  and the photo below is after adding the wax.

 The shine is hard to capture in a photo, so here is a video...

 I heated my little fish and bent them to fit the curve of the egg and used hot glue to place them.

 I used a paint brush and added some colour back to my plastic plants (sea weed...)

 Here is my inside all glued in place

 Above is the foil which has been embossed with Tim's folder and below it has been aged with black distress paint.

 I heated and bent my "Octoman" and glued him to the egg.

  I put the cut outs back into the egg so that I could spray without getting the paint on the inside.

 Using the same order, I sprayed Lime

 Then Turquoise

 Then Leather over my whole egg.

 This is the back of the egg where the texture I had created in the gesso is catching the acrylic sprays.

 Here is Ocotoman before ⇑ and after ⇓ his wax rub.

 Then I added some Bronze Age wax by Finn and some Treasure Gold Brass for highlights on his helmet.

 I created rings to go round the port holes by tracing round the domes onto sticky backed foil and embossing and aging them with black soot distress paint.

 The domes were aged with alcohol ink and distress paint.

 Hot glue was used to add the cable tidy stuff round the edge of the domes.

 Treasure Brass was used to highlight the texture of the cable tidy.

 I added the ricepaper sea horse to the left side of the back of the egg.

With the rice paper Octoman on the right side of the back.

 Then for good measure, I added the gears which I molded from the same mold as the seahorse and the Octoman by Stamperia.

 I have put a little LED light inside the egg which I have to open using this latch to switch on and off.

 Here is the egg with its light on so you can see the seahorse in his world of pipes inside.