Konnichiwa, Doctor

Rule #1: Never take a nap on April Fool's Day. Rule #2: Especially if you live with someone who has a vast amount of costumes and make-up at one's disposal!

I'm surprised I went all out on this picture for just April Fool's Day. It's probably because I seriously needed to laugh and this concept came up quickly. I wanted to do humiliation, but also draw Basil laughing. That naturally meant the joke had to be placed on someone else, namely poor Dawson.

This was completely hand drawn on March 29 by me with the full background penciled. Please see the original b&w drawing as proof. I then colored the entire thing in CorelDRAW Photo Paint 8. NO photos have been added. I viewed movie stills as references ONLY. I first used solid colors to paint everything and then I went back with the effect tools for shadow effects. The characters are movie-style without shadows on them.

I thought about writing a story behind this, but the coloring job took up all of my time. I spent two days coloring on it with minimal hours of actual work to it. The most of a storyline I can come up with is this:

Olivia was visiting, got a hold of a Kabuki make-up kit of Basil's, and had a little fun with it as Dawson snoozed on the blue couch. Basil, meanwhile, is working at his chemistry table, unaware of what's going on. Dawson gets up to announce that he has to leave for a while to his doctor's office to see a patient. Basil, still not looking, does not catch him leave. This means Dawson goes around town wearing that make-up and getting all kinds of weird stares. By the time he gets to his office, the nurse behind the counter (after she had a laughing fit) shows him to a mirror. This make-up can't come off that easily; he needs to return home to apply the proper make-up remover products. That's when he walks in, ready to confront Basil whom now catches his face for the first time, also reacting in uncontrollable laughter.

Kabuki, for those who don't know, is Japanese for singing and dancing. The actors wear elaborate make-up in stage performances. There are many different designs of the make-up both for male and female performers. Normally the performers are fully dressed up, but this couldn't be done here. Olivia just quickly followed a pattern in the kit and applied it, obviously the female pattern. Poor Dawson!

The Great Mouse Detective and its characters is © Eve Titus/Disney