Sherlock Holmes Re-Imagined: November 2019

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.

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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.

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.”

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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.”

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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 1 November 2019

Disguises in the Sherlock Holmes canon

‘The Man with the Twisted Lip’ Re-Imagined

Dr Watson accompanies Sherlock Holmes to Kent, to investigate the strange disappearance of Neville St. Clair, a respectable country businessman. A disfigured beggar is arrested for the murder of the missing man as some clothes of Neville St. Clair were recovered from his room above an opium den. Holmes surmises, however, that the truth is less sinister and simply an exceptional case of mistaken identity.

“He broke into a scream.”

Disguises employed in the canon

Throughout the Sherlock Holmes canon (the original 56 stories and four novels written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) disguises, worn by both Holmes and other characters, feature in a number of adventures. Of these disguises, that of Neville St. Clair as the disfigured mendicant Hugh Boone is one of my favourites, as I find the idea of a respectable man giving up his career as a journalist to beg in the streets because he can earn more money quite intriguing. Even though the ability of the titular character to earn a decent living begging has been questioned, there is some evidence which suggests that it may in fact be possible, although perhaps not likely. As for Holmes himself, he assumes numerous disguises in order to obtain information for his cases, including an old man in an opium den in ‘The Man with the Twisted Lip’. In fact, in ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’, the first story in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Re-Imagined book series, Holmes adopts two distinct disguises, namely a clergyman and a horse groom (or stableman). Additional disguises of the detective include, but are not limited to: a sailor (‘The Sign of Four’), a plumber (‘The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton’), an elderly book collector (‘The Adventure of the Empty House’), an elderly woman (‘The Adventure of the Marazin Stone’), and an Irish-American spy (‘His Last Bow’).

“He is a professional beggar.”

All the many characters appearing in the various stories of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, as well as the disguises they employ, require the use of a number of distinct LEGO® minifigure face designs. Fortunately, more than 2000 different LEGO® minifigure heads that have been produced since 1978, when the first heads with the standard grin were manufactured. Minifigure heads now have a variety of expressions to exhibit emotions such as anger, fear, surprise, confusion, concern, and mirth, as well as more detailed features including wrinkles, cheek lines, eyeglasses, and facial hair, like eyebrows, beards and moustaches, which come in an assortment of colours in addition to the traditional black. In the current story, Neville St. Clair’s disguise as the beggar Hugh Boone (the above photo) necessitated a very particular facial expression in order to represent his ‘twisted lip’. This particular minifigure head was created for a ‘Hunchback’ character from a LEGO® set released in 2002 called ‘Vampire’s crypt’. For Sherlock Holmes, when not in disguise, I wanted to find a facial design which conveys the detective’s wry sense of humour, thus the crooked smile and raised eyebrow. And the Watson minifigure needed to have a steadfast expression and a moustache, of course.

“He took out a very large bath sponge.”

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.