Steampunk Holmes: Concept Sketch

Daniel Cortes sent me this wonderful concept sketch of Steampunk Holmes. Daniel rightly wants him to be fairly tall, focused, handsome, and disheveled. As Daniel told me, "Holmes is so totally focused on his surroundings that he completely forgets himself. He doesn't worry about his hair being combed or condition of the clothes he wears." I love that.

Another thing that Daniel wanted to know is how punk is the world of Steampunk Holmes? Is everyone very proper and dressed only in victorian garb or do folks have rastafarian hair and nose rings? I said yes to both. Click on the concept sketch (left) to get a bigger image. Notice the intensity of Holmes gaze. Awesome!

I've also been talking with the adaptation author, Marta Tanrikulu. Marta is already trying to figure out how to shorten the exposition at the beginning of the story and add some more action. I've asked Marta (and Daniel) to read The Difference Engine and extrapolate what that world would look like 30 years later. Marta told me that she got the book in the mail today and would start reading it right away. I'm reading the book for the fourth time and starting to make some notes about how Steampunk Holmes world has advanced. For example, in the original book there were no airships yet. We are definitely going to have airships floating around in the background of our story.

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UPDATE July 7th, 2011

Daniel just sent me another concept sketch of Holmes which is really cool. I think in this version he is a bit younger and punkier and, if possible, cooler.

UPDATE 7/29/2011


The writer working the project has changed. It's now Prescott Martin.

Character Portraits for Steampunk Holmes

John Singer Sargent

One of the features of the Steampunk Holmes book will be what I call reference cards. When you see a character's name in the book you need only touch it and up pops a reference card with a portrait of that character. Touch the portrait and it flips over to reveal background information - no spoilers.

I was talking to Daniel Cortes about the art work, and he had some wonderful ideas we are going to try out. For one, Daniel wants to do the portraits on the reference cards in a style similar to one of his favorite artists, John Singer Sargent. I couldn't agree more. Of course Daniel will add a little modern edge to them and he had this great idea of having the portraits animate just a little. So, for example, the portrait of Steampunk Holmes might have smoke rising from his pipe and he might blink now and then - simple but fun things like that.

Daniel is also going to help out with the design and art work for the pages themselves, menu items, borders and so on. I want the look and feel of the entire book to be consistent with his art work in style. I'm really very excited about working with him on this project - his enthusiasm for quality and beauty is well aligned with my own.

Dr. Watson's Mechanical Arm

Steampunk Arm by Morrigun

Although Dr. Watson is normally depicted as having a bad leg, in the original story of Sherlock Holmes - "A Study in Scarlet" - he had a bad arm, which was injured in a military battle in Afghanistan. For Steampunk Holmes it's a lot more fun to keep the injury in his arm so that he can have this super cool mechanical arm.

The question I have is how is it powered? I don't like the idea that it's powered by steam because maintaining a miniature boiler on your arm and feeding it coal sounds pretty impractical. Instead, I've decided to borrow from the clockwork (aka clockpunk) genera and make it powered by a wind-up spring. The spring will self wind (like a self winding watch) from normal movement but if the arm is put to intense use there is a hand crank that can be deployed to wind up the spring that powers the arm. I also like the idea that the arm has different attachments including, of course, a huge gun.

The World of Steampunk Holmes

I've always been a huge fan of William Gibson ever since I read Neuromancer the year it was released (~1984). I've read just about every book he's written. When The Difference Engine came out in 1991 I did as I always do when a new Gibson novel is released, I ran to the book store and purchased it. I was delighted by Gibson's and Sterling's alternative history novel. It was, for me, a totally new form of science fiction but I had no idea it would turn into a genera called "Steampunk" until several years later. I've been listening to the audio version narrated by Simon Vance and I've fallen in love the book all over again. I can see from the Amazon.com ratings that many people would disagree but I consider the book to be one of the best I've ever read.

In Gibson's & Sterling's The Difference Engine Charles Babbage's mechanical computer which he invented in 1822 is actually built and it ushers in the computer age a 130 years earlier than in the real world (in reality Babbage's invention was not built until 1991). The result is pure Steampunk, which is not surprising since this book helped define the genera.

In The Difference Engine mechanical computers, based on Charles Babbage theories, are the size buildings constructed of brass gears and metal springs. The machines are programmed using punch cards as were originally used for mechanical looms. It's really a fantastic dystopia. I can't understand why its not universally accepted as a genera defining masterpiece the same way Lord of the Rings is for fantasy or Neuromancer is for cyberpunk.

Since The Difference Engine has always colored my view of alternative histories and Steampunk I've decided to place Steampunk Holmes in the world created by Gibson and Sterling, but 30 years later. The Difference Engine takes place in 1855 while Sherlock Holmes was doing most of his work around the 1885. This really sets us up for some fun because we get to imagine what technological advances would have taken place in the 30 years between Gibson's & Sterling's alternative history and our own. Where would technology had evolved? What path would it take? Would steam have been replaced by combustion engines? Would the telephone have been invented? What about a crude sort of Internet based on the telegraph? We are going to explore these questions as we develop Steampunk Holmes and hopefully we will do William Gibson and Bruce Sterling proud with our own adaptation.

Steampunk Holmes' Artist: Daniel Cortes

Art by Daniel Cortes for Warsquared

I'm very excited to announce that Daniel Cortes has signed on to create the art work for Steampunk Holmes. Daniel was a late entry but his portfolio of art and motion graphics along with his enthusiasm for the project won him the work.

Daniel is a character designer for the gaming industry and is currently working on a steampunk strategy game called WarSqaured; you can check it out here.

To get a flavor of just how cool Steampunk Holmes is going to be, check out the art and motion graphics demo that Daniel did for the WarSquared promo video. You can expect to see this kind of quality art and motion graphics in Steampunk Holmes

War Squared Trailer from Daniel Cortes on Vimeo.

Choosing an Author for Steampunk Holmes

Datamancer Keyboard

I spent the last few days re-reading many Sherlock Holmes stories and I have to say that while the characters are really cool, the short stories about Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle really don't work all that well for the Steampunk genera. Sherlock spends a lot of time in his flat interviewing clients. Most short stories unwind as narratives about the client and their problem with very little action by Holmes himself. Usually Holmes listens to the client tell there story and then he pretty much solves the mystery with hardly any action other than a site visit. Steampunk Holmes will need to be much more active employing devices of his own design and traveling the streets of an alternative, steampunk London. After all, this is speculative fiction so we need to see some cool locations, characters, and devices.

For this reason I've asked the authors who have posted an interest in working on this project a request to submit to me an original story idea for Steampunk Holmes as well as examples of their writing. I've already received three very different story ideas all of which are excellent. I'll choose the author with the best writing (or most appropriate writing style) and the best idea. It's really cool to see the ideas that come out of speculative fiction authors - they are so creative!

Artists for Steampunk Holmes: The Finalists Are ....

SCAPS Agent Game Guide by Firstbase

As I mentioned in a prior post I put a job posting up on Elance for artists and writers to work on the Steampunk Holmes project. I've had over a dozen responses to the Art post and have narrowed that down to four artists. I've asked the artists to submit a sketch of how they envision Steampunk Holmes looking - I hope to have those in my hands for review within a few days.

In the meantime I thought I would discuss each artist and why I like their style;

Daniel Kopalek
I really like Daniel's comic book illustration style, inking and coloring. I hadn't thought of doing a comic style but after looking at his work and another I've decided that it must be considered. I've always thought the current state-of-the-art in iPad comics fails to leverage the full potential of the medium. With work like Daniel Kopalek's I can take my own shot at how to integrate comic art with short-story format.


Manuela Soriani
Manuela is another comic book illustrator whose art I really like. It's different from Daniel's but like Daniel she is able to convey emotion, create complex environments, and works well in drawing, inking, and coloring.


Robert Schoolcraft
Another comic book artist who also sent me some line drawing showing victorian scenes which I really liked. I also like his the way he illustrates women as I've been thinking of making Steampunk Holmes a woman - a beautiful strong woman would be different and possibly wonderful.


Firstbase
These guys have a totally different approach: 3D. They already have lots of experience in doing Steampunkish 3D work in their own game multi-player game, SCAPS Agent. The problem with 3D is that it's really expensive and I don't know if I can afford it. However, they also do page layout and they sent me a sample of their work, the game guide to SCAPS Agent, and the layout was really cool (Click on image in upper left of this blog). So while they may be too expensive for basic illustrations they may be perfect in helping with page design and layout.


I want to choose the right artist but I also need to figure out how much art I need and compare not only talent but also - sadly - the price. My next step is to narrow down an author.