schweizercomics:schweizercomics:I moved to a new city a few months ago, and had a chance to meet up
schweizercomics:schweizercomics:I moved to a new city a few months ago, and had a chance to meet up with my local Baker Street Irregular scion, the Nashville Scholars of the Three Pipe Problem, at their monthly meeting last time. With Christmas coming, I figured I ought to do something which I’d intended to do for some time - a Blue Carbuncle playset. If you’ve never been to a Sherlockian group meeting, you usually read a story and then have a quiz and a discussion about it. Though the stories vary and rotate, December is generally where one reads “The Blue Carbuncle,” because it’s a Christmas story. Given that it would be fresh on everyone’s minds, I thought I’d make playsets for all the folks present to have as a Christmas goodie, and a thanks for their being so darn welcoming to me last month.One of the things that I want to do over the next five years is do one set of characters from each story, one a month ‘til I hit all sixty. I’m guessing that’ll lay me at somewhere between three and four hundred characters. I figure it would be a neat things for schools to have, and fans and whatnot. I won’t be doing dioramas each time - Baker Street took far too long to try and muscle that in - but prominent characters from each tale would be a lot of fun, especially since I’d get to play with Sherlock and Watson from their early twenties (I don’t hold with the Morley contention of his 1854 birth year based on his being pegged at sixty while in disguise, and myself lay him at having been born in 1860, with Watson only a year older) through their mid-fifties, reflecting changes in the popular fashions of clothes, mustaches, and hairstyles. Anyway, thought I’d share!One note - I tried to stick to the facts as much as possible, but deviated on one important point: the placement of the goose atop the table rather than on the sideboard. Given that this is a diorama/playset, I figured that the best bet would be to include only three of the four walls, and I couldn’t fit the sideboard in on one of the other walls without losing an element expressly stated to be there. Oh, well. Artistic license!Acknowledgements: I used Ernest Short’s and Russell Stutler’s floorplans as springboards, though I deviated where I thought it necessary/worthwhile (where the pile of commonplace books are, location of the liquor cabinet, where the portrait of Gordon would be (Holmes would need to have seen Watson’s eyes alight on it which means it couldn’t be at Watson’s desk, otherwise his back would’ve been to Holmes and the deduction could not have been made), etc. When applicable, I used Bradley Keefauver’s chronology (some points of which I disagree with, but I love his assertion that only the only the first chapter of “Study in Scarlet” takes place in 1881, so it’s my go-to) to determine which case mementos ought line the shelves at the time that “Blue Carbuncle” would be taking place. Oh, and in case you’re wondering, that big skull? Giant rat of Sumatra. Happy Sherlock Holmes’s birthday!I made this a couple of years ago and am glad to share it, if you want to print it out and assemble it yourself! (clearly didn’t do the one story a month thing I mentioned in the original write-up, but I still hope to tackle them all someday).I’ve put the PDF up on Gumroad for anyone who wants it, so have fun! -- source link