Thursday 15 December 2011

Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure of the Speckled Band

















































The Adventure of the Speckled Band is a Sherlock Holmes adventure written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In this detective story the murderer uses an Indian swamp adder that crawls down a bedside bell rope to kill his victims, without leaving any traces behind. One of the victim's last words are "It was the band, the speckled band!" referring to the snake.

It is one of the most imaginative
Sherlock Holmes short stories, regarding the murder weapon. The Indian swamp adder has a lot of people puzzled as to what manner of a snake it was, as there is no such species.

I wanted to illustrate my impression of the venomous Speckled Band, as it crawls down the rope and attacks. It was a lot of fun trying to create a snake's face from the front, as there is little there to work with. Using geometry to solve the problem, I came to this interesting hourglass shape for its face and gave the swamp adder huge yellow eyes to create the image of death in its expression.

It's a little homage to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes I wanted to pay, as I often work while listening to his adventures, dramatised for radio with Clive Merrison and Michael Williams.

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