Technology British Library sticks 1 million pics on Flickr, asks for help making them useful

This is the title of a short article by Peter Bright published on Dec 14 2013 in Ars Technica. 
The article can be found here.

Art departments of major libraries have been maintaining picture galleries; photographs and illustrations cut from newspapers, magazines and damaged books for decades. These are literally thousands of huge folders of  clippings with highly generalized titles like "fashion", "dress", "horse", etc... I remember them fondly when I was an art student. I've now spent some hours going through a very small fraction of the images on the British Library Flicker site there is an amazing amount of materiel which would be of interest to the war gamer. I've taken a number of images of the site for my own personal enjoyment/reference some of which I'll post here below this paragraph. No the problem the library has is that the only information recorded about each individual image is the name of the publication and the page number the image was on nothing more. To make matters worse it that many of these publications are in Dutch, French, German and Russian with untranslated captions. I urge you to browse the collection for yourself and see what you can find. I've collected mostly 19th century images as my blog centers on that period but there is a wealth of 17th and 18th century images in the collection. You can find the collection by following this link.

Pictures have the British Library captions underneath them.

Image taken from page 292 of 'A larger history of the United States of America to the close of President Jackson's administration ... Illustrated, etc'

Image taken from page 411 of 'Across Africa, etc. With a map and plates.'

Image taken from page 265 of 'Onze aarde. Handboek der natuurkundige aardrijkskunde ... Met 150 platen en 20 kaartjes in afzonderlijken Atlas'

Image taken from page 113 of 'Expedición geográficomilitar al interior y costas de Marruecos'

Image taken from page 41 of 'An Archæological Description of Saltwood Castle near Hythe, Kent ... With illustrations ... The historical notes by C. Beeston'

Image taken from page 117 of 'Under the Rays of the Aurora Borealis; in the land of the Lapps and Kvæns ... 

Image taken from page 81 of '[Gordon and the Mahdi, an illustrated narrative of the war in the Soudan, etc.]'

Image taken from page 631 of 'Кавказская война въ отдѣльныхъ очеркахъ, эпизодахъ, легендахъ и біографіяхъ. том. 1-том. 5. вып 3'

Image taken from page 437 of 'Orient Line Guide. Chapters for travellers by sea and by land. Illustrated. A new edition, ... augmented, with maps ... for the voyage between England and Australia. Edited ... by W. J. Loftie'

Image taken from page 288 of 'Orient Line Guide. Chapters for travellers by sea and by land. Illustrated. A new edition, ... augmented, with maps ... for the voyage between England and Australia. Edited ... by W. J. Loftie'

Image taken from page 215 of 'With a Show through Southern Africa ... Second edition. Popular edition'

Image taken from page 1062 of 'Illustreret Norges historie. [With plates.]'

Image taken from page 544 of 'Cassell's History of the War in the Soudan'

Image taken from page 630 of 'Cassell's History of the War in the Soudan'

Image taken from page 223 of 'Kriget mot Danmark 1675-1679 ... Med porträtt, kartor, etc'

Carts of Course

I've been working on carriages for my London board here are some work in progress shots.

Lideo Bakers Van with Recreation Conflict Harness Mule

Here is a period picture of a similar van apart from the wheels which I will replace what do you think?

Here is the Lideo plastic driver. Victorian drivers are proving hard to come by.

Do you guys think the mule is a good size for the baker's van? Please let me know in the comments.
I bought the Lideo vehicle from Recreational Conflict he sold out of this vehicle but has some others. The Mule is also from Recreational Conflict and can be found in the Tiger Miniatures section under colonial Equipment.

Street Clock

 I foolishly ventured out on the day American's call "Black Friday" the Friday after Thanksgiving, given over to special Christmas sales and mall brawls. Why did I do such a dangerous thing you ask well as to that all I can say is that I've become mesmerized by Richard's (of WAR in 15mm fame) 28mm Victorian City. I learned that he had used some Christmas Decorative Village pieces in his wondrous set up so I braved the Manhattan streets in search of usable Christmas decor on the cheap. I returned home tired but otherwise unharmed baring this clock. More of my Black Friday Booty will appear in future posts.

The clock is a solid piece cast in Tuffstone a plaster concatenation mixed with a polymer used in cheap Chinese tourist statuettes. Its light and shatterproof and you can cut it with a hobby saw. It looks to be a useable scale next to the zombies and I got it for $2.

 REAPER MINIATURES
A note on Reaper Miniatures, Reaper makes a number of nicely sculpted figures in their Chronoscope line suitable for Victorian or Pulp gaming (like my nunslinger above) but be warned that Reaper doesn't believe in scale. A figure's size is whatever that particular sculptor feels like, most are "heroic 28mm" (more like 30mm) larger than West Wind or Foundry, a few are true 28mm and some like the Colonial British Soldiers and Zulus are a monstrous 32-34mm tall. They make space marines look sickly. So for all you non-Americans who can't view there figures in person I suggest you ask a friend just how large a particular figure is before you mail order it.

See the nunslinger is a big woman, but she is by no means the biggest Reaper figure.


 I realize that my recent posts have been a bit random my hobby time has been totally helter skelter since the accident. I can however state unequivocally from now one there will be a regular post on Sunday nights. Hopefully one every Wednesday night as well, but Wednesday nights isn't firm yet.

I haven't touched a brush in over a week but Tophat and Mr. Speckles with appear here finished after Christmas.

Ripper Street Cancelled!

This is horrible news I've just heard that the BBC has cancelled RIPPER STREET the only decent show on the BBC. This hard hitting show is the only one I've ever know to delve into the Victorian pornography racket.

A gentlemen by the name of David Saunderson has all ready begun a "Bring Back Ripper Street Petition" I have signed I urge you to sign it as well. You can find it here.

Requiem Phase One Black Friday-Cyber Monday Sale

 

 

 

So if you are looking for any pf these characters they can be had from Brigade Games a $6.85 a piece.  Also the carriages and steam machines are for sale too! Check out their store.

The History of the Order of the Sacred Blood

"In ancient times the world was ruled by the old gods of ice & fire but then a new god arose in the middle east. The followers of this new god destroyed the shrines of the old gods in an orgy of blood & fire. The old gods tried to save their worshipers by bestowing the gift of their sacred blood upon their greatest champions. The sacred blood granted them godlike strength, vitality and immortality, but this new god flush with power cursed them so that they weakened in the face of the sun"

The Chronicle of the Order of the Sacred Blood-

The Pagan Kingdom of Lithuania

"The Pagan Kingdom of Lithuania remained the last bastion of the old gods in Europe having withstood the forces of the Baltic Crusades and the Order of the Teutonic Knights, but this small nation could no longer withstand the Christian might of Europe. So in an effort to stop the genocide being perpetrated against his people Grand Duke Jogaila married the 11-year-old Queen Jadwiga of Poland and the nation was officially converted to Christianity in 1386. The champions of the old gods, the vessels of the sacred blood, went to sleep deep in their castle crypts and the Order of the Scared was formed from the oldest aristocratic families to watch over them."

From The Secret History of Lithuania-


June 24th 1812
Napoleon crossed the Neman River today war has begun. The Tzar's Court is calling it the Great Patriotic War but them every war is patriotic.

June 26th 1812
I've received my orders today the regiment is to muster at Riga on the 30th.

June 27th 1812
He's awake! I was in the crypt attending to the champion and he awake he spoke to me... he said "Its raining blood".

From the diary of Jan Matejko-

"After nearly five centuries the champions have awakened they are gifting the most worthy members of the Order with the Sacred Blood turning them into a pale imitation of themselves. Outside of the Order humanity has largely forgotten them though they do live in peasant folklore as monsters called Nosferatu..."

From the New History of the Order if the Sacred Blood-

I've received the generous gift of no less than 3 Perry Bros. Napoleonic calvary arms with sabers from Mike McGraw thanks mate! I'll get to work on the Nosferatu consort conversion of Nadezhda Durova and here history as a vampire right away.

 I'll be using this cool Requiem figure as the Graf or champion.

And these brothers will be the minions of the order.

Mantic Werewolves or No Faction Left Behind

The Requiem KS introduced a huge number of new figures for EotD players to use in the game. One would think that with so many new figures every one of the 4 original factions would receive additions for players to build their factions with. Sadly one faction has been left behind the Lycons. There aren't any new wolf, wolfskin or werewolf models among the 200+ Requiem figures. But Lycon players don't sink into despair Mantic has release a new resin Werewolf kit in their Kings of War fantasy line.

This kit contains three multi-part werewolf figures. These figures are on 40mm bases and bulkier than the West Wind werewolves.

Look at all the poses you can make with this kit, it looks like hours of fun to me.

Here is the link to the link to the Mantic store.