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[beekeeperspicnic]

Stock photo lady loves her art book, she's sure you'll like yours too!

The Beekeeper's Picnic artbook is here!

An ebook containing 60 pages of Beekeeper's Picnic content, including:

Meta and essays, including 'You Know My Methods', a talk I gave about Sherlock Holmes video games at the British Library about in 2023!

Insight into the game development process, and the 'lost prologue'!

Comprehensive notes about the character and location design process, and some of their real-worth inspirations!

Lots of scribbles and silliness, including my favourite game bugs.

Available on Itch.io or the Kickstarter Rewards Portal!

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Martha!

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Watching Rathbone Holmes The Pearl of Death and…

Stiff as a varnished eel.

[beekeeperspicnic]

The Beekeeper's Picnic artbook is here!

An ebook containing 60 pages of Beekeeper's Picnic content, including:

Meta and essays, including 'You Know My Methods', a talk I gave about Sherlock Holmes video games at the British Library about in 2023!

Insight into the game development process, and the 'lost prologue'!

Comprehensive notes about the character and location design process, and some of their real-worth inspirations!

Lots of scribbles and silliness, including my favourite game bugs.

Available on Itch.io or the Kickstarter Rewards Portal!

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Just thinking about how one of the biggest deviations from The Canon in this game came about because I couldn't be bothered to animate tiny pixel art Sherlock Holmes pistol whipping a man.

[beekeeperspicnic]

#how did you print the inside text to loos so natural as a book?????

Ok so this is something that really shocked me about bookbinding when I first started - I figured I'd need special paper, but I feel that regular printer paper works just fine. The trick is to get it in off-white/cream, because regular white paper looks too bright/blue.

(*Technically* best practice in bookbinding is to pay attention to the grain of the paper, and regular printed paper folded in half has the grain going the wrong way so it can ripple in unwanted ways, but I've decided to just accept that as a limitation of my home-made books.)

The Secret of Sherlock Holmes bookbinding project!

I've really wanted a hard copy for a while of 'The Secret of Sherlock Holmes' play by Jeremy Paul, which was performed by Jeremy Brett and Edward Hardwicke (and is very high on my list of things to go and see if I get a time machine, because there aren't any video recordings of it.)

ANYWAY it's long out of print and very expensive to buy so I figured... I can just make one myself!

First I bound the text block. It's so slim, at a grand total of 75 pages.

I bound the cover in honey-coloured book cloth, and then set about creating a cover design.

I wanted to use the official logo of the play and this amazing publicity photo, so I went into my paint package of choice (clip studio) and tweaked the photograph until I was happy I'd got a likeness of the actors only using black and white. I think Jeremy Brett lost a little of his handsomeness, alas.

A while ago I bought a cutting machine, a Silhouette Portrait, which comes with some great software which can automatically convert an image like this into a path for the cutting machine to follow, although I usually tweak it manually too.

For example, I figured the weave on Hardwicke's tie was too intricate so I removed it.

Then I set the cutting machine to work!

For a while I tried using self-adhesive vinyl to make covers, but I found that it wasn't very hard-wearing and would start peeling off. These days I use self-adhesive vinyl to make a stencil, and then paint onto the book cloth in acrylic. The fact that the stencil is self-adhesive reduces the chances of any paint sneaking in underneath!

(The stencil is gold just because I have a lot of spare gold vinyl - it's probably not the best colour to use.)

For this project I did something I've never done before, which is doing two layered stencils, a white layer underneath, and then a black layer on top.

I kind of regret not painting all of the figures in white because if you squint you can see the line where the white stops on the final piece.

And now for the really satisfying bit - peeling of the stencil when everything has dried!

I'm really pleased with the finished book, and it's so fun to possibly have the only hardback version of this play... ever...???

[beekeeperspicnic]

The Secret of Sherlock Holmes bookbinding project!

I've really wanted a hard copy for a while of 'The Secret of Sherlock Holmes' play by Jeremy Paul, which was performed by Jeremy Brett and Edward Hardwicke (and is very high on my list of things to go and see if I get a time machine, because there aren't any video recordings of it.)

ANYWAY it's long out of print and very expensive to buy so I figured... I can just make one myself!

First I bound the text block. It's so slim, at a grand total of 75 pages.

I bound the cover in honey-coloured book cloth, and then set about creating a cover design.

I wanted to use the official logo of the play and this amazing publicity photo, so I went into my paint package of choice (clip studio) and tweaked the photograph until I was happy I'd got a likeness of the actors only using black and white. I think Jeremy Brett lost a little of his handsomeness, alas.

A while ago I bought a cutting machine, a Silhouette Portrait, which comes with some great software which can automatically convert an image like this into a path for the cutting machine to follow, although I usually tweak it manually too.

For example, I figured the weave on Hardwicke's tie was too intricate so I removed it.

Then I set the cutting machine to work!

For a while I tried using self-adhesive vinyl to make covers, but I found that it wasn't very hard-wearing and would start peeling off. These days I use self-adhesive vinyl to make a stencil, and then paint onto the book cloth in acrylic. The fact that the stencil is self-adhesive reduces the chances of any paint sneaking in underneath!

(The stencil is gold just because I have a lot of spare gold vinyl - it's probably not the best colour to use.)

For this project I did something I've never done before, which is doing two layered stencils, a white layer underneath, and then a black layer on top.

I kind of regret not painting all of the figures in white because if you squint you can see the line where the white stops on the final piece.

And now for the really satisfying bit - peeling of the stencil when everything has dried!

I'm really pleased with the finished book, and it's so fun to possibly have the only hardback version of this play... ever...???

[beekeeperspicnic]

A detailed explanation of my very first attempt at cosplaying!

[beekeeperspicnic]

Okay SO

Not only is it the Glorious 25th 🪻🥚

Not only is it David Burke's 90th birthday 🎂

NOT ONLY is it The Sherlock Holmes Society of London’s mini festival weekend 🎩

It is finally, FINALLY the day that @jabbage and I cosplayed Holmes and Watson at MCM London!!

Also featuring my dear spouse who made a very excellent Mycroft ❤️❤️❤️

We had an AMAZING TIME!!! And, bonus print that I bought from Brambledown Designs because I couldn't resist!

[beekeeperspicnic]

Okay SO

Not only is it the Glorious 25th 🪻🥚

Not only is it David Burke's 90th birthday 🎂

NOT ONLY is it The Sherlock Holmes Society of London’s mini festival weekend 🎩

It is finally, FINALLY the day that @jabbage and I cosplayed Holmes and Watson at MCM London!!

Also featuring my dear spouse who made a very excellent Mycroft ❤️❤️❤️

We had an AMAZING TIME!!! And, bonus print that I bought from Brambledown Designs because I couldn't resist!

[beekeeperspicnic]

Hey tumblr, can we do something awesome?

Don't Go Into The Cellar! is this wonderful theatre company that's brought me so much giddy glee over the past couple of years. I feel like 'theatre company' is almost a misnomer because the entire thing is spearheaded by actor and writer Jonathan Goodwin.

At a performance, he comes out and completely NAILS a macabre tale from Victorian or Edwardian literature. It's generally spooky, and yet somehow, it's always so warm, so fun. I think it's because you can tell you're watching someone doing something they utterly love. A passion for the literature, for the theatre, for the characters he portrays, radiates out of him.

(And like... his Sherlock Holmes. Augh. When I first saw him perform I was like IT'S HIM HE'S HERE. I'm not saying visually, he's not a living Paget illustration or something, I'm saying he Nails The Vibes)

I just want DGITC to succeed and go on succeeding, and for everyone involved to have the financial security needed for that to happen.

Anyway, long story short he's been a little short on funds lately and started to do fortnightly live performances on livestream and I have this vision of a bunch of us turning up and giving him a wonderful appreciative audience.

So, it would be awesome if you could...

Check out his existing recordings! I have linked one above :D Is the video quality the best? No. Doesn't matter, watch it and bask in the fun.

The next live performance (at the time of writing) is Sunday June 2nd at 9pm BST, on Facebook! Save the date!

And last but not least consider the GoFundMe for the theatre company <3

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It's been absolutely ages since I've had any visually interesting game stuff to share, so here's a menu!

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Happy 164th Birthday, Arthur Conan Doyle!

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Some audio dramas to pick up on your next rainy day! 🌦

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I come from Germany and when people assume that my hometown is pretty much an Oktoberfest caricature... unfortunately, I really come from a mostly preserved medieval town, half-timbered houses, more than a dozen breweries; to the point where their image might actually be that specific town because quite a few Hollywood movies were made there >.>

Argh, I sympathise! I've lived in a few places in England that have been used as filming locations and that attract lots of tourists for how stereotypically English they are. I'd end up saying things like "We don't all live in castles, you know! Ok I do happen to have live in a flat in a 14th century belltower, but..."

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See I was joking but turns out a very specific bit of Switzerland does look precisely like that:

I'm probably going to be quiet for the next couple of weeks because I'm going........ to SWITZERLAND.

Which I presume will look exactly like this at all times:

I promise my entire life doesn't revolve around going on vaguely Sherlock Holmes adjacent holidays 🙈 I wanted to see the Alps basically all my life and I was planning and saving up money for this for years, and then a pandemic got in the way, so I'm really excited that I'm finally just doing it.

(But also of COURSE I'm going to go to the Reichenbach Falls, how could I not.)

[beekeeperspicnic]

Why hello yes I am a complete dork, thank you for asking.

(The path on that side of the falls has eroded in the past 100 years so that's as close as I can get, you.ll just have to trust me that the Reichenbach Falls are there behind the trees.)

Here's a Holmes-eye view!