Monday, August 15, 2011

Dr. John Watson's Service Revolver

Literary props are relatively rare creatures, far overshadowed by the more popular film-based replicas in the prop community. That's why I was so impressed when Mike Jenkins emailed me a link to this amazing recreation of Dr. Watson's service revolver by "Deck5" over at the Replica Prop Forum.



Follow the thread and you'll discover something even more amazing- the gun and display case were made from dollar store items. Here's a work in progress shot of the blister-packed cap gun that served as the base.



If you haven't, you might want to pick up the Mythos/Holmes crossover anthology "Shadows Over Baker Street". I finished it over the weekend, which no doubt accounts for part of my enthusiasm for this prop project. Like most anthologies it's a mixed bag. Around sixty percent of the stories misfire, either because of a tenuous connection to the Mythos or meandering plots, but the other forty percent are pretty solid. The real gems of the collection were "A Study in Emerald" by Neil Gaiman and "The Weeping Masks" by James Lowder. A PDF of Gaiman's story, complete with wonderfully period layout, is available at his site .

4 comments:

Gothridge Manor said...

I like. I never thought about movie props, especially living on the wrong side of the country for them, but it would be interesting to collect a few interesting pieces.

Alex Kaeda said...

While deep down I understand that firearms are effectively useless against most mythos creatures.... they still provide a measure of.... is it comfort?

And of course, there's always cultists to contend with.

Personally, I'm a fan of using airsofts, or 8mm blank fire stuff, but they're more expensive than this dollar store treasure. Its quite well done, in my humble opinion.

Technomancer said...

I've done something similar, just more sci-fi from an old cap gun: http://technomancersblogofrandomgeekery.blogspot.com/2011/07/sci-fi-steampunk-gun-prop-complete.html

Ian Coakley said...

A Study In Emerald is one of my favourite short stories.

And that is an amazing looking gun, especially for being made from a toy.