Shows incorporated puppetry, multimedia and performances by female members ("Nurses" and "Scouts") of his street team, The Army of Toy Soldiers.

Steel's music can often be heard on a number of steampunk radio broadcasts that stream worldwide, such as The Clockwork Cabaret.

Steel's music is eclectic in genre, often combining the noise and distortion of industrial with aspects of European folk, classical, and even jazz,[18] as well as hip-hop, opera and swing.

[5][10][19] Steel cited, as some of his musical influences, Igor Stravinsky, Tom Waits, Pink Floyd, Queen, Mike Patton, Nine Inch Nails, Danny Elfman, Beck, and John Zorn.

He claimed to be a former toymaker who, in a fit of rage over being fired for creating drastic designs such as babies with buzzsaws for hands, burned down the factory he worked at and was committed to a psychiatric institution.

[21] This back-story relates that Steel escaped the sanitarium and retreated to a deserted island laboratory, where he became bent on world conquest to create a "Utopian Playland" where his toy designs could be enjoyed.

[22][23] As a mad scientist, Steel is obsessed with conspiracy theories, giant robots,[24] baking cupcakes and "mind control cookies", and experimenting with hamsters.

When not in his "mad scientist" costume, Steel typically dressed in a very aristocratic neo-Victorian steampunk style,[16] while still retaining his goggles.

One such is a six-minute "propaganda" film called Building a Utopian Playland, which ostensibly outlined his plans for world domination.

In May 2010, Dr. Steel released a music video to his song, "Childhood Don't a-Go-Go", directed by Tony Leonardi III.

The website for the organization, referred to playfully as the "digital bunker", was created by the then head of Dr. Steel's fan club, steampunk model and fashion designer Kate Lambert, aka "Sergeant Kato", in 2006.

Toy Soldiers continue to promote Dr. Steel's philosophy, individually through "missions", while larger group events are known as "operations" or "invasions".

[41] The decision to use a term with such charged connotations was a deliberate satirical allusion to famous groups in the past who had plans for world domination,[8] to spotlight or "hang a lampshade" on the tricks of mass manipulation.

Since 2010, the Toy Soldiers have participated yearly in the Doo Dah Parade in Pasadena, CA[50][51] and have become "veteran crowd favorites.

"[52] (In 2016, Route 66 Magazine ran a story on the Doo Dah parade, featuring a member of the Toy Soldiers on the front cover.

The Army also has several semi-regular podcasts, which are released under the umbrella of the Toy Soldiers' YouTube channel, "TSU-TV", and its own recording label, "TSU Audio Labs".

In keeping with its nonprofit status in the UK, in 2013 the Army donated its surplus budget over operating expenses to the children's charity Child's Play.

[54] In 2014, the Army teamed with MPserv.net to run a 48-hour livestreamed Minecraft marathon called "Operation: Dig Deep", raising over $1000 for Child's Play.