Sometimes I devise a Toylocked picture when watching an episode (for the umpteenth time) and suddenly work out how to create a scene. Sometimes, however, I see a prop and work out how to use it to illustrate an episode.
Browsing in a craft shop near my home, I found a tiny pair of wire spectacle frames, designed for doll-making. My mind running on Sherlock, I instantly thought of the scene in His Last Vow where he looks through Magnussen’s glasses in the cafe.
The rest of the picture just followed on: the tiled floor is wrapping paper, the crockery is from my supply of dollshouse accessories, and the drip is made from a small plastic bag full of water, an allen key from a flat-pack furniture kit, the lead from an old pair of headphones… and Sherlock is wearing a piece of an old white handkerchief!
Another picture was inspired by seeing on a dollshouse supplier website a bed which looked just liked Sherlock’s.
This was quite an expensive prop, but it came with all the bedding and I managed to use it in more than one picture. Anyone who has watched the extras on the Sherlock DVDs will have seen how the crew working on A Scandal in Belgravia rigged up a real bed with a mechanical lift so that Sherlock appeared to fall into a bed in a field. In this case, he went to bed in my garden!
Seeing tiny boxes of chips (“fries” for American readers!) available online started me thinking about Sherlock’s apparent return from the dead in The Empty Hearse and the scene in a takeaway with John and Mary. I found online a tiny fish poster, another advertising “frying times”, and a perfect little gingham table. It made me wonder how many other people are out there creating tiny fish and chip shops.
Representing blood is complicated. The obvious answer would appear to be ketchup, but it shows up brown and smeary in a photo. The blood on Sherlock’s napkin is just ink. The blood on his face is writing icing from a supermarket.
Trawling through eBay for tiny crockery, I found a set of tiny Oriental teapots. Oh joy – an instant scene from The Blind Banker!
In that episode, Sherlock looks at the museum’s teapots in a glass case with glass shelves. I improvised with a glass shelf from a TV cabinet so that I could get the reflection. I haven’t been able to bring myself to give away the teapots since taking this – they are too perfect!
For many years I have had in my bathroom a soap-dish in the shape of an old-fashioned bath. It suddenly occurred to me that it was the perfect size for a Funko toy. Of course, they don’t make a version of Sherlock with no clothes on (shame!), so I had to make a lot of bubbles in order to cover up his coat and scarf. This scene doesn’t appear on screen – it’s my imagination of a scene behind the scenes of His Last Vow. It took a surprising number of shots to get this right, because of the mirrors on the bathroom unit; I don’t want people to see me or the iPhone in the picture!
The bathroom unit and all the tiny props (toothbrush, toothpaste, loo rolls, razors) came in handy, though: they enabled me to create another picture which attracted a lot of positive feedback:
This time I used real shaving foam to create the right sort of bubbles for John as he desperately tries to convince himself and Mary, in The Empty Hearse, that he isn’t influenced by Sherlock. We all know better…
Finally in today’s blog, a a tiny wooden chest of drawers which I have have owned since I was a child took on a new life for Toylocked. Some carefully folded and sewn strips of ribbon served as pairs of socks, and behold, Sherlock can check the sock index he mentions in A Scandal in Belgravia:
This was also a great opportunity to display the tiny iPad and laptop which I’ve used in a couple of pictures. Details fans will be interested to know that the book on top of the chest of drawers is a very small copy of Bradshaw’s Railway Guide, referred to by Sherlock Holmes in the original stories and by Victorian travellers in real life. Toylocked: bringing you the authentic Sherlock Holmes experience in miniature!
Toylocked 