Concept Art - Basil Lindell
I created Basil back in 1998 and he was originally named after the tobacco plant, but I changed my mind, years later. He was always expected to be a comedic character. I had liked his outgoing, spontaneous nature a lot when I was in elementary school, but in my young adulthood I found him to be extremely aggravating. His new design was inspired by the Toaster Strudel boy.
The green jacket that Basil wore when he entered the estate was based off of a very large green jacket that I own. |
Basil's vol03 outfit was inspired by a prototype doll that I found at a doll show for a company I used to collect during my college years. They never released that doll and I'm still very disappointed by that. My sister said that he looks like a leprechaun.
I don't remember at what point in the storyline I wanted to make alternate costumes for the characters, but I found myself plotting out these Magic Item Transformations and working them into the plot.
This is Night of The Mouse King, which was inspired by E.T.A. Hoffmann's story The Nutcracker and the Mouse King and especially it's ballet adaption. In the book, the Mouse King is a descendant of the Mouse Queen who cursed Drosselmeyer's nephew and turned him into the Nutcracker, however this back story is hard to carry across in the ballet version, so some performances carry the mouse theme along through the boyish fetishes of the character, Fritz Stahlbaum. In some variations, it is Clara Marie's brother, Fritz, that haunts her Christmas dream with his fascination for mice. In this manner, Basil's costume combines all of the irritation of the brother figure, Fritz, and his mouse fetish. In the original book, Fritz is actually a year older than Clara Marie, but most stage variations depict him as much younger than her. The design of the costume was pulled from other old doll fashion designs that I had sketched many a Christmas ago. It did concern me that the costume featured a little too much fur for a mouse. This costume is the only animal transformation, I designed for this story, that lacks a mask and it's mostly due to the fact that, traditionally, the mouse king is supposed to have multiple heads and I didn't want to give myself a headache trying to honor that trait. It's common amongst stage performances to depict the battle between the mouse king and nutcracker as a sword fight, but I won't be allowing Basil access to any violent weapons in this event. I suppose that would technically make this magic item actually an armor accessory... |