Basil and Dawson Solving a Clue (Disney’s “The Great Mouse Detective” (1986)) (watercolor, 2022) 🐭🔍

It’s time to solve a mystery and look out for clues on this new topic here on The Autistic Animator’s Desk, for we are back into the wonderful world of Disney watercolor fan art! Today, I am very excited to share you all a very first watercolor fan art of another amazing Disney animated film that I’ve always grew up watching from my childhood, and that is The Great Mouse Detective (1986).

Not only we’ve got a new watercolor drawing here on today’s topic, but a second watercolor artwork, after the first one I posted back on the first Saturday of September, which was an illustration of the Elephant Man, Joseph Merrick feeding his little bird-friends in the country. If you haven’t seen it yet, you can find it here, titled: Joseph Merrick (the Elephant Man) Feeds His Bird-Friends (watercolor, 2022). In the case of The Great Mouse Detective, this is drawn on the second page of the 9 in. x 12 in. mixed media drawing notebook, at 12 x 9, in the horizontal view.

If you are a regular or a new reader on this blog, and don’t know anything about this Disney film, let me give you a bit of history of it: The Great Mouse Detective is the twenty-sixth animated film by Walt Disney Pictures, released in 1986. It is based on the children’s book series, Basil of Baker Street by Eve Titus. It’s basically Sherlock Holmes in a mouse form, based on the iconic detective in the classic English literature, created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The directors were Ron Clements, John Musker, Burny Mattinson, and David Michener. This was the very first film directorial debut for both Ron Clements and John Musker, known as the team of Ron and John, the Disney legends behind The Little Mermaid (1989), Aladdin (1992), Hercules (1997), Treasure Planet (2002), The Princess and the Frog (2009), and Moana (2016); one of the amazing contributors of the Disney Renaissance from the late-1980s’ to the 1990s’.

The film features the talented voices of Vincent Price, Barrie Ingrahm, Val Bettin, Sussane Pollatschek, and Alan Young. Vincent Price, one of the classic Hollywood stars and icons, was the voice of the leading villain, Professor Ratigan, who is a rat caricatured of Professor James Moriarty of the Sherlock Holmes stories, and the animation was done by Glen Keane, who has worked on animating iconic Disney characters, such as Ariel, the Beast, Aladdin, Pocahontas, Tarzan, and Long John Silver. Many other Disney artists of the Disney Renaissance, like Andreas Deja and Mark Henn, also worked on this film, one of their earliest works in Disney animation, after The Fox and the Hound (1981), which was their first film to work, and The Black Cauldron (1985).

The Great Mouse Detective came out a year after the release of The Black Cauldron, the twenty-fifth animated Disney film. It opened pretty good, but as it turns out, at the box office, it was beaten out by another animated film, and that was An American Tail (1986) by Don Bluth and Steven Spielberg. Needless to say, it wasn’t a failure, but it did help reshaped Disney to making more great films in the eighties, with Oliver and Company (1988) and coming back towards the biggest success with The Little Mermaid.

I grew up watching this movie at a young age, I would watch it many times on the VHS copy, and it has been one of my favorite Disney movies. It was my first introduction to Sherlock Holmes…but Basil became the first one…along before knowing about the famous English detective. I thought the animation was very fascinated, it’s gotten so many great characters, beautiful backgrounds and artwork, and even though it’s not heavily musical, it’s got fun, great songs and music by Henry Mancini. This was Mancini’s first animated film to work on as a composer, after composing the iconic Pink Panther music theme. I even got to learn how to draw my favorite characters from the movie, such as Basil, Olivia Flaversham, and Toby the dog. This happens to be my first-time drawing Dr. Dawson, only for the artwork here.

In this watercolor fan art, it illustrates a scene from The Great Mouse Detective, where Basil and Dawson had just returned back in Basil’s home in Baker Street, after Olivia was kidnapped by Fidget the bat, Ratigan’s main henchman, at the toy shop in London, and there they have found the list that Fidget lost that Ratigan has written for him to go out and steal tools, gears, the uniforms, and Olivia for the Queen’s Jubilee destruction. Back in Baker Street, both Basil and Dawson begin to search the clue behind the list and figuring out the whereabouts on Ratigan’s plans. Before they can get to Ratigan, Basil and Dawson have to go out to search for a pub, where underneath goes through the sewer that’ll lead them to Ratigan’s lair.

Let’s solve on this remarkable Disney fan art! 🤔

🔍 Basil and Dawson Drawing 1 (Sketching and Cleaning-Up the Drawing) 🔍

So, this is the second watercolor project for the 9 in. x 12 in. mixed media drawing pad, after I have worked on the very first watercolor drawing of Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man. Funny enough, I begin working on the Basil and Dawson fan art on a Sunday afternoon, on August 21st, a week after I had begun working on the Elephant Man watercolor illustration.

When it came to work on another watercolor drawing, I knew that I wanted to go back to do another Disney fan art but do something new that I haven’t done. I was choosing between one of my favorite Disney movies, the ones I haven’t done for any watercolor fan art, so I was going either One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961) or The Great Mouse Detective. In the end, I went with The Great Mouse Detective. So, if I was going to do a fan art of this movie, I knew that I wanted to do a scene with Basil and Dawson solving the clue behind the list.

In preparation of this drawing, I went on Google research to find and choose a couple of screenshot images of the movie, only as the main guides for the background of Basil’s house, learning how to draw the layout and picking up color studies. The first out of the two Google images was also used for me to learn how to draw Dr. Dawson.

I lightly sketched both Basil and Dawson and then, the background layout onto the entire page. Once the sketching was finished, I took long strips of tape and taped around the page to create the border. You’ll see that for the Elephant Man watercolor drawing, in which that’s how I’m gonna approach any of my watercolor drawings, just to give it a clean look. Then, I can go ahead and clean up the lines, tracing the light pencil outlines with the black ink pen, and erase off all the pencil lines, till they were gone.

🔍 Basil and Dawson Drawing 2 (Painting the Characters in Color) 🔍

It was the very same day as I have begun this project, when I was able to get started on the second part of working on it, and that was getting Basil and Dawson in color. The watercolor medium was all done with the watercolor pencil sets.

I start coloring the first half of Basil and Dawson later on that night, then stopped, till the next night, and end up finishing it up on a Wednesday afternoon. Both Basil and Dawson have dusty-brown fur, and in order to create that color, I used mixed of the pencils in dark brown (coloring lightly), light brown, apricot, and bit of gray. Their noses are dark brown. And they have pink ears from the inside, which I used mixed of pink and cherry-red pencils. Of course, I also have to color Basil’s magnifying glass in gray, and the list mixed lightly in gray and yellow.

When the coloring was done, after coloring the characters’ costumes, even after finishing up coloring Dawson, I begin to paint the characters in full watercolor medium.

🔍 Basil and Dawson Drawing 3 (Painting the Parlor Background) 🔍

We move to the third part of making this full Disney watercolor fan art project, and that is…the background. This was right after I had just paint Basil and Dawson in watercolor that I was ready to get started on coloring and painting the full background of Basil’s parlor-room with the watercolor pencils.

The first thing I began with were the two chairs (one in red and one in green), the wooden floor, and the rug. The red chair on the left was the main chair that Basil would sit down and play his violin, which you will see it in the film, when Olivia was trying to get Basil’s attention to convince him to help her and find her father, Mr. Flaversham, a toymaker, after he was kidnapped by Fidget and taken away to Professor Ratigan, where he was forced to build a mechanical mouse queen. I use mixed of carmine-red, cherry-red, and black for Basil’s red chair, and I was able to create darker tone shadows by using black pencil first and red second. For the green chair, I used mix of dark green and bit of olive pencils.

I didn’t start painting the first half of the background till the next morning, and add the shadows on the chairs for each, and on the bottom of the wooden floor. For the rug, I paint the colors by tapping the paintbrush to create the realistic carpet-like texture. In that image, you’ll noticed the shadows were colored in the pencil texture, which I photographed before painting the shadows in watercolor medium.

🔍 Basil and Dawson Drawing 4 (Shadows, Finishing the Background, and Final Touch) 🔍

Now, it is time to finish off the mystery in this final section! The Game’s Afoot!

I can finish off the drawing by painting the second half of Basil’s parlor background. Parts of the background I completed were the walls and the fireplace. I was using the screenshots as my guides to color and paint the same colors as they were painted for the film, and like how I approach for the first half, I focus on the color studies and paint them. When that was finished, I blow dry the paint with the hair dryer, so the drawing would stay dry, and I can add shadows.

The black watercolor pencil is the main tool for coloring the shadows, and I also used other dark colors, such as olive green for the wall and gray for the newspaper pages Basil would hang them on the mantlepiece. The shadows were painted, and the background was completed.

The very last thing to paint was the little white light shining on the rounded glass on Basil’s magnifying glass, which was done with white acrylic paint. At last, the project was finished on Thursday, August 25th, 2022.

The mystery has been solved! And that is the very first watercolor fan art of Basil and Dawson solving a clue from Ratigan’s list from The Great Mouse Detective. I hope you all have enjoyed this topic and the drawing. It was a really fun project, though it’s been quite a long time since I’ve drawn my favorite characters from the movie, but it was fun to draw Basil again, and it was fun to learn to draw Dawson, as well.

What are your thoughts on The Great Mouse Detective? Who are your favorite characters? What’s your favorite scene? Your favorite quotes? Your favorite songs? Please share one in the comment box down below!

This movie has a very fascinating history, and if you want to learn more about The Great Mouse Detective, I highly recommended listening to an episode from the Rotoscopers Animation Addicts Podcast, an animation podcast I listen to, as an animation fan myself. Of course, the movie is featured from the documentary, Waking Sleeping Beauty by Don Hahn, and you can watch it on Disney+. The Great Mouse Detective is also available to watch on Disney+.

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