The raven symbol is a good luck symbol in some cultures, while others find it to be a creepy and unsettling symbol ala Hitchcock's "The Birds." Me? I think of them as kind of a mix of all the iconic imagery, and a good place to start for my steampunk gift.
I started to bend the wire into the raven shape, much like a dimensional contour drawing.
Then, I spray painted the covered wire black.
Next, I began to build up the "skeleton" with gears and twiddly bits to replicate eyes, vertebra and the layers of the birds wing feathers.
Overall the effect is steampunkilicious, I think. What do you think?