Sherlock Holmes Re-Imagined

Wednesday 1 January 2020

The Return of Sherlock Holmes Re-Imagined

‘The Adventure of the Dancing Men’ Re-Imagined

Mr. Hilton Cubitt of Norfolk seeks the help of Sherlock Holmes in deciphering strange coded messages, consisting of little dancing figures, which have unsettled his peaceful marriage. A short time later, Cubitt is found dead and his wife Elsie suffering a grave bullet wound to the head. Inspector Martin thinks it is a case of murder and attempted suicide, but using information garnered from the coded messages, Holmes sets a trap for the true culprit.

“I suppose that you are the detectives from London, he said.”

Sherlock Holmes Re-Imagined returns

I am happy to announce the return of the Sherlock Holmes Re-Imagined book series with the release of ‘The Adventure of the Dancing Men’ on 21 June 2017. For those new to this blog, in this book series the original short stories about the great detective are accompanied by photographic illustrations of custom models which I designed and built using only LEGO® brand minifigures and bricks. Between 2014 and 2016 the twelve stories comprising The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes were published by MX Publishing as individual books and as a collector’s edition containing all twelve stories in one volume. The new story, ‘The Adventure of the Dancing Men’, which is one of the thirteen stories comprising The Return of Sherlock Holmes, was originally published in the Strand Magazine in 1903 and naturally illustrated by Sidney Paget. This new adventure was ranked third on the list of Arthur Conan Doyle’s favourite Sherlock Holmes stories (see earlier post: ‘The ‘grotesque’ case of Jabez Wilson’).

“He bent forward and picked up a little brazen cylinder.”

To help celebrate the release of ‘The Adventure of the Dancing Men’ Re-Imagined several free downloadable supplementary files have also been created. This includes a printable custom designed LEGO® poster of the ‘Dancing Men’ alphabet, as well as building instructions for a custom designed LEGO® garden sundial for your bookshelf. This latter model was created as a sundial features prominently in the story as a location where several of the dancing men coded messages are found. These files as well as additional downloadable content and illustrations from all the stories in the Sherlock Holmes Re-Imagined book series can be found on our website.

Can I see more information about your book series?

Please visit our webpage and Facebook page for more information regarding the Sherlock Holmes Re-Imagined book series, including news, reviews and free downloads.

The current story as well as all 12 books in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Re-Imagined book series are available for purchase on Amazon UK, the Book Depository (with free worldwide delivery), and the MX Publishing website.

LEGO® is a trademark of the LEGO Group of Companies. The LEGO Group has not been involved in nor has it in any other way licensed or authorized the publication of this book series.

Tuesday 17 December 2019

Women in the Sherlock Holmes canon

‘The Adventure of the Copper Beeches' Re-Imagined

A young lady named Violet Hunter visits Baker Street seeking the advice of Sherlock Holmes on whether to accept a job as governess which commands a generous salary, but with some peculiar conditions. Two weeks after ultimately accepting the position, Miss Hunter calls Holmes to The Copper Beeches, an estate in Hampshire, to look into the singular, and at times terrifying, behaviour of her employers.

“Capital.”

Sherlock Holmes's female clients

Although most of the primary characters in the original Sherlock Holmes stories are men, there are a number of female clients and secondary individuals throughout the canon, such as the famed housekeeper of 221B Baker Street, Mrs Hudson, and Dr Watson’s wife, the former Miss Mary Morstan. In fact, in the twelve adventures that comprise the Sherlock Holmes Re-Imagined book series a woman is central to the plot in no less than half of them, including Miss Irene Adler in ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’ and Miss Helen Stoner in ‘The Adventure of the Speckled Band’. The action in ‘The Adventure of the Copper Beeches’ also revolves around a young woman, Miss Violet Hunter (one of four women named Violet featuring in cases investigated by Holmes and Watson), who greatly impresses the Great Detective with her intelligence and composure.

“You villain! said he. ‘Where’s your daughter.”

A central plot point in ‘The Adventure of the Copper Beeches’ involves an electric blue dress which Violet Hunter is requested by her employer to wear while sitting in front of a window. Therefore, when rendering the illustrations for this story into LEGO®, a dress fitting this description was required for a couple of the models. On this occasion it was possible to find a colour to closely match the description in the story text; however, this is not always the case as LEGO® has not produced very many minifigures with dress or skirt pattered slope pieces with matching torsos. Moreover, as with male torso designs (see earlier post: ‘The varied clients of Sherlock Holmes’), none of the current dress designs are particularly Late Victorian in style. The two dresses appearing in the current story are from a medieval castle playset (red queen’s dress in the first photo) and a playset from The LEGO Movie, namely a barmaid from the American Old West (blue dress in the second photo).

Can I see more information about your book series?

Please visit our webpage and Facebook page for more information regarding the Sherlock Holmes Re-Imagined book series, including news, reviews and free downloads.

All 12 books in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Re-Imagined book series, as well as a complete collector’s edition incorporating all of the stories, are available for purchase on Amazon UK, the Book Depository (with free worldwide delivery), and the MX Publishing website.

LEGO® is a trademark of the LEGO Group of Companies. The LEGO Group has not been involved in nor has it in any other way licensed or authorized the publication of this book series.

Tuesday 10 December 2019

The varied clients of Sherlock Holmes

‘The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet' Re-Imagined

Banker Alexander Holder has been entrusted with the safekeeping of the precious Beryl Coronet, one of the most valuable treasures of the nobility. Afraid to leave the valuable piece of jewellery at the bank, he brings it home, only to have a piece of the crown broken off and three beryls stolen. Holder appeals to Sherlock Holmes to help recover the precious stones and thus avoid a personal and national scandal.

“Oh, any old key will fit that bureau.”

Sherlock Holmes's clients

In this adventure Holmes’s ultimate client is an exalted member of the nobility, which we are lead to believe is the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII. However, the Great Detective accepts cases for a wide variety of clients ranging from simple governesses and pawn brokers to kings (see earlier post: ‘Sherlock Holmes, the king, and the woman’). Therefore, throughout the Sherlock Holmes canon we are introduced to characters from the upper classes and also the working class. Depiction of these various individuals necessitates many different clothing styles, such as the image below from ‘The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet’ of Sherlock Holmes disguised as a common loafer, or someone suspiciously unemployed, of which Watson states: “With his collar turned up, his shiny, seedy coat, his red cravat, and his worn boots, he was a perfect sample of the class”.

“Dressed as a common loafer.”

Although LEGO® has not produced any Victorian based playsets, there have been a few minifigure themes for which one or more torso designs could be adequately used to represent the clothing fashions of the late 1800s. Among these, minifigures accompanying playsets for the Harry Potter and Indiana Jones film series as well as The Lone Ranger movie have been quite useful. The torso with dark brown jacket and dark bluish grey vest in the photo above is an example of the latter, which is set in the 1870s, although in the Western United States and not England. For many characters in the stories comprising the Sherlock Holmes Reimagined book series, it is not possible to closely match Watson’s descriptions of their clothing in terms of style or colour with a minifigure torso currently available. However, for some individuals there are LEGO® torso designs that are somewhat similar to the apparel described in the text, or at least that depicted in the illustrations by Sidney Paget, such as the image below of George Burnwell wearing an astrakhan coat. Fortunately, as with minifigure heads (see earlier post: ‘Disguises in the Sherlock Holmes canon’), LEGO® has produced a very large quantity of minifigure torsos, now in fact numbering over 3000, and every year sees the release of many more.

“I clapped a pistol to his head.”

Can I see more information about your book series?

LEGO® is a trademark of the LEGO Group of Companies. The LEGO Group has not been involved in nor has it in any other way licensed or authorized the publication of this book series.

Tuesday 3 December 2019

Foreign connections in the Sherlock Holmes canon

‘The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor' Re-Imagined

Sherlock Holmes is consulted by Lord Robert St. Simon whose wife, Hatty Doran, disappeared shortly after their wedding. Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard is convinced that culpability rests with Miss Flora Millar, a former acquaintance of Lord St. Simon. Holmes, though, quickly discerns the true fate of Miss Doran as he realizes that the solution to this delicate problem resides in her past back in the United States.

“She was ejected by the butler and the footman.”

Villains and clients from abroad

Sherlock Holmes and the adventures he shared with Dr Watson are intimately associated with Victorian England and London in particular, as mentioned in last week’s post. However, throughout the Sherlock Holmes canon, many references are made to people and places, as well as the sometimes nefarious activities that took place, abroad. Included among these foreign locations are the United States, and also Australia and India, both colonies of the British Empire during the late nineteenth century. In the current story, the intended wife of the titular noble bachelor, Lord St Simon, hails from the USA, and her apparent disappearance is tied to earlier events in her native country. Australia and India also feature in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, namely in the ‘The Boscombe Valley Mystery’ and ‘The Adventure of the Speckled Band’ respectively, as does America again in ‘The Adventure of the Five Orange Pips’.

“The gentleman in the pew handed it up to her.”

Although Sherlock Holmes is not present, I think perhaps my favourite illustration from ‘The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor’ Re-Imagined is the photograph of Flora Miller being escorted from the premises of Lord St Simon by the butler and footman (see first photo above). I quite like the composition of the illustration as well as the various colours utilized in the model. LEGO® produces many more colours for their bricks and parts than the six primary ones from my childhood 30 years ago (read, yellow, blue, green, black, white). Some of the more useful of these additional colours when creating the models for the Sherlock Holmes Re-Imagined book series include several shades of brown (brown, reddish brown, dark brown), used to build wooden floors and furniture, as with the church pew in the photo above. Other rather new colours appearing frequently in illustrations throughout the book series include darker shades of various colours such as dark red, dark orange, and dark bluish grey (see first photo above for examples), as well as dark green (suit of Frank Moulton in photo above) and dark tan (hair of Lord St Simon in photo above).

Can I see more information about your book series?

LEGO® is a trademark of the LEGO Group of Companies. The LEGO Group has not been involved in nor has it in any other way licensed or authorized the publication of this book series.

Friday 22 November 2019

Sherlock Holmes away from home

‘The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb' Re-Imagined

One morning a young hydraulic engineer, Mr. Victor Hatherley, visits Dr Watson’s surgery requiring medical attention as his thumb has been severed during a murderous attack. Watson dresses the wound and then takes his patient around to Baker Street to consult with Sherlock Holmes, who makes sense of the strange happenings upon hearing the engineer’s story, but is unable to apprehend the criminals.

“He unwound the handkerchief, and held out his hand.”

Sherlock Holmes outside London

The Great Detective is closely associated with his London residence at 221B Baker Street, which he shared at times with Dr John Watson. And while many cases investigated by Sherlock Holmes take place in the greater metropolitan area, a good number of investigations, some of which begin in London, lead Holmes and Watson further afield. Perhaps the most famous of these latter cases is that re-told in ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’ which largely takes place in Dartmoor, in the southwestern English county of Devon. Those not familiar with English geography can check out this map. Other locations in the canon include the English counties of Surrey, Hampshire, Sussex, Yorkshire, Kent, and Cornwall, as well as the country of Switzerland, where Holmes purportedly lost his life doing battle with Professor Moriarty. The action of the current story, ‘The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb’, primarily occurs in the fictional village of Eyford, which is said to be located a few miles from my current home town of Reading, in the Royal County of Berkshire, England. The final Sherlock Holmes story published by Arthur Conan Doyle, ‘The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place’, also takes place not far from my home in Berkshire.

“A house on fire.”

As a result of all the travelling to the countryside to investigate cases, a number of illustrations depict Holmes and Watson on board a train or at the station. This includes the iconic photo of Holmes and Watson discussing the murder of Charles McCarthy while sitting in a train carriage on their way to Herefordshire, as recounted in ‘The Boscombe Valley Mystery’ (see my post from March 22^nd). A quite similar illustration of Holmes and Watson also appears in ‘The Adventure of Silver Blaze’. Other stories in which Holmes is depicted as either travelling by train or at the station upon arrival or departure include: ‘The Adventure of the Navel Treaty’, ‘The Final Problem’ and ‘The Adventure of the Dancing Men’, which I hope will be the next story published in the Sherlock Holmes Re-Imagined book series. In ‘The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb’, Sidney Paget also chose to illustrate Holmes, Watson, their client Victor Hatherley, as well as Inspector Bradstreet and a plain-clothes officer from Scotland Yard on the platform at Eyford Station. As far as rendering this illustration in LEGO® (see photo above), the challenge was to depict the large column of smoke rising up in the distance behind some trees. This was achieved by using a couple of stacks of white ice cream scoops which appear in a large number of LEGO® minifigure sets.

Can I see more information about your book series?

LEGO® is a trademark of the LEGO Group of Companies. The LEGO Group has not been involved in nor has it in any other way licensed or authorized the publication of this book series.

Friday 15 November 2019

Animals in the Sherlock Holmes canon

‘The Adventure of the Speckled Band' Re-Imagined

A distraught young woman named Helen Stoner arrives at Baker Street early one morning to ask Sherlock Holmes for help as she fears that her life is being threatened by her stepfather, Dr Grimesby Roylott. At Stoke Moran, the estate where Miss Stoner and her stepfather live, Holmes carefully inspects the recent, but unnecessary, repairs to the manor-house and in doing so exposes a murderous plot.

“She raised her veil.”

Creatures in the Sherlock Holmes Canon

Several different animals are mentioned in ‘The Adventure of the Speckled Band’, including a baboon, cheetah and the titular ‘speckled band’. Since the publication of this story in 1892, Sherlockian scholars have debated the true identification of the snake as its description and name (“Indian swamp adder”) does not appear to match any known species. Nonetheless, the story remains a favourite among fans. Other animals that feature prominently in the canon include several dogs (‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’, ‘The Sign of Four’ and ‘The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire’), a venomous jellyfish (‘The Adventure of the Lion’s Mane), and a race horse (‘The Adventure of Silver Blaze’). And of course, horses appear in a large number of stories as a means of transport, such as with the ubiquitous hansom cab and other horse-drawn vehicles of the late Victorian period.

“We got off, paid our fare.”

LEGO® produces a number of animals to accompany minifigure sets, including dogs, cats, birds and various farm animals. Some of these creatures, including assorted horses as in the picture above, are roughly to scale of LEGO® minifigures; however, many animals are much too large. The latter is the case for the three types of snakes made by LEGO®, which are nearly as long as minifigures themselves, and therefore not very realistic. As a result, for the current story, I had to design the titular ‘speckled band’, and what is more the snake needed to wrap around the head of a minifigure, which is impossible to do with a moulded plastic snake. I ‘solved’ this issue, to my satisfaction, by using a yellow elastic (or rubber) band which came with a hand-full of sets produced between 1998 and 2011 (see photo below).

“He made neither sound nor motion.”

Can I see more information about your book series?

LEGO® is a trademark of the LEGO Group of Companies. The LEGO Group has not been involved in nor has it in any other way licensed or authorized the publication of this book series.

Friday 8 November 2019

The observation of trifles

‘The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle’ Re-Imagined

Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson investigate the curious discovery of a blue carbuncle in the crop of a Christmas goose abandoned by a man during a scuffle with some street ruffians. Holmes makes a series of deductions concerning the owner of a tattered old hat recovered along with the goose and thus sets out on the trail of the audacious thief who stole the precious stone five days previously.

“See what my wife found in its crop!”

The smallest point may be the most essential

In ‘The Boscombe Valley Mystery’, Sherlock Holmes says to Dr Watson: “You know my method. It is founded upon the observation of trifles”. A similar sentiment is recorded in ‘The Man with the Twisted Lip’, in which Holmes declares: “It is, of course, a trifle, but there is nothing so important as trifles”. This practice is clearly demonstrated in ‘The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle’, where Holmes famously deduces a number of facts about an unknown man based on observations of his hat and its condition, such as the man’s age, intellect, hair colour, use of hair product, and even decline in fortune. Throughout the Sherlock Holmes canon, the detective performs comparable feats of deduction from the study of personal belongings, including eyeglasses (‘The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez’), a pocket watch (‘The Sign of Four’), a walking stick (‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’), and a pipe (‘The Adventure of the Yellow Face’).

“A very seedy hard-felt hat.”

Over the last 35 years, LEGO® has produced a variety of accessories to accompany minifigures from various themed sets, such as Space, Pirates, Castle, and City, as well as film-based sets like Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, Lord of the Rings, and Pirates of the Caribbean. Many of these accessories have proved useful when creating the illustrations for the Sherlock Holmes Re-Imagined book series. For example, the first illustration of the current story (above) includes several different accessories for LEGO® minifigures, such as a magnifying glass, printed newspaper tiles, and a tattered hat (which was part of a Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde minifigure called ‘Mr Good and Evil’). Additional accessories featuring in the other illustrations for this adventure include a glass bottle, a meat cleaver, and a gemstone (representing the titular blue carbuncle). However, for the book series, I have also had to create, from existing LEGO® parts, some minifigure accessories including Holmes’s smoking pipes and the dead Christmas goose from ‘The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle’, which was difficult to design to minifigure scale. In the end, for me the most accurate representation of the goose (see photo below) was the simplest, consisting of only two LEGO® parts: a white hand of a standard minifigure to represent the neck of the bird and the arm of a collectible minifigure called ‘Chicken Suit Guy’ to form the body.

“He bowed solemnly to both of us.”

Can I see more information about your book series?

LEGO® is a trademark of the LEGO Group of Companies. The LEGO Group has not been involved in nor has it in any other way licensed or authorized the publication of this book series.