Author Topic: Joker's Osprey Topic - hundreds of pics!  (Read 18902 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline Joker86

  • Mad & Bad
  • King
  • **********
  • Renown: 1226
  • Infamy: 324
  • cRPG Player
  • Why so serious?
    • View Profile
  • Faction: Companions
  • Game nicks: Joker86_TP
Joker's Osprey Topic - hundreds of pics!
« on: January 29, 2012, 12:43:26 am »
+61
Hi there!

The discussion about new armour brought me to the idea to post the coloured plates from my Osprey book collection. These books are more or less the modern reference for military history for everyone who is not a real, dedicated expert but rather only interested or very interested. They try to depict military technology as accurately as possible, so you can basically treat them as sources for any historical investigation.

This topic can have several purposes. I can serve your entertainment, it can inspire you for a certain style of equipment, but it can also serve as base for creating new items, if one of you is capable of modelling and texturing. There are some really amazing pictures among them, and some warriors look really badass, for example the blue Norman Knight.

If you want further information, I will see what I can do  :wink:


European Medieval Armies
(click to show/hide)


German Medieval Armies 1000-1300
(click to show/hide)

German Medieval Armies 1300-1500
(click to show/hide)

French medieval Armies 1000-1300
(click to show/hide)


French Armies of the 100 Years War
(click to show/hide)


Italian Medieval Armies 1000-1300
(click to show/hide)


Italian Medieval Armies 1300-1500
(click to show/hide)


Armies at Agincourt
(click to show/hide)



Armies at Crecy and Poitiers
(click to show/hide)


Armies of Medieval Burgundy?
(click to show/hide)


Armies of the German Peasant War
(click to show/hide)


Armies of the Hussite Wars
(click to show/hide)


The Swiss at War
(click to show/hide)


The Landsknechts
(click to show/hide)

The War of Roses
(click to show/hide)


The Scottish and Welsh at War
(click to show/hide)


Scandinavian Medieval Armies 1000-1300
(click to show/hide)


Scandinavian Medieval Armies 1300-1500
(click to show/hide)


Armies of the Scandinavian Baltic Crusades
(click to show/hide)


The Vikings
(click to show/hide)


Saxon, Viking and Norman
(click to show/hide)


The Normans
(click to show/hide)


The Age of Charlemagne
(click to show/hide)


Polish Medieval Armies
(click to show/hide)


The Venetian Empire
(click to show/hide)


El Cid and the Reconquista
(click to show/hide)


The Conquistadores
(click to show/hide)


Knights at Tournament
(click to show/hide)


Medieval Siege Warfare
(click to show/hide)


The Crusades
(click to show/hide)


Armies of the Crusades
(click to show/hide)


The Knights of Christ
(click to show/hide)


Armies of Medieval Russia 750-1250
(click to show/hide)


Armies of Medieval Russia 1250-1500
(click to show/hide)


Byzantine Armies 886-1118
(click to show/hide)


Byzantine Armies 1118-1461
(click to show/hide)


The Varangian Guard
(click to show/hide)


Hungary and the Fall of Eastern Europe
(click to show/hide)


Steppe Warriors
(click to show/hide)


The Mongols
(click to show/hide)


Armies of Islam
(click to show/hide)


Armies of the Caliphates
(click to show/hide)


Armies of the Muslim Conquest
(click to show/hide)


Saladin and the Saracens
(click to show/hide)


The Mamluks
(click to show/hide)


The Moors
(click to show/hide)


The Age of Tamerlan
(click to show/hide)


Armies of the Ottoman Turks
(click to show/hide)
Joker makes a very good point.
î saved for eternety (without context  :mrgreen:)

Offline Joker86

  • Mad & Bad
  • King
  • **********
  • Renown: 1226
  • Infamy: 324
  • cRPG Player
  • Why so serious?
    • View Profile
  • Faction: Companions
  • Game nicks: Joker86_TP
Re: Joker's Osprey Topic - hundreds of pics!
« Reply #1 on: January 29, 2012, 12:46:15 am »
+1
-Reserved -
Joker makes a very good point.
î saved for eternety (without context  :mrgreen:)

Offline Joker86

  • Mad & Bad
  • King
  • **********
  • Renown: 1226
  • Infamy: 324
  • cRPG Player
  • Why so serious?
    • View Profile
  • Faction: Companions
  • Game nicks: Joker86_TP
Re: Joker's Osprey Topic - hundreds of pics!
« Reply #2 on: January 29, 2012, 12:52:40 am »
+1
-Reserved -

Perhaps there is yet more to come?  :wink:
Joker makes a very good point.
î saved for eternety (without context  :mrgreen:)

Offline Zimke Zlovoljni

  • Earl
  • ******
  • Renown: 347
  • Infamy: 8
  • cRPG Player
  • Accelerate ze protons! ಠಠ
    • View Profile
Re: Joker's Osprey Topic - hundreds of pics!
« Reply #3 on: January 29, 2012, 02:53:46 am »
+1
Thanks for this mr Joker ;)

Offline Adalwulf

  • Count
  • *****
  • Renown: 169
  • Infamy: 53
  • cRPG Player A Gentleman and a Scholar
    • View Profile
  • Faction: HRE
  • Game nicks: Adalwulf
Re: Joker's Osprey Topic - hundreds of pics!
« Reply #4 on: January 29, 2012, 04:00:08 am »
0
Agreed good stuff. +1

Offline Christo

  • Dramaturge
  • King
  • **********
  • Renown: 1844
  • Infamy: 371
  • cRPG Player
    • View Profile
  • Faction: No faction, methinks.
  • Game nicks: Sir_Christo, Christo, Cristo.
  • IRC nick: Christo
Re: Joker's Osprey Topic - hundreds of pics!
« Reply #5 on: January 29, 2012, 04:27:24 am »
0
Good stuff, indeed.

Ah, there is a Hungarian section, Just too many pictures and I got confused.  :mrgreen:
« Last Edit: January 29, 2012, 04:28:51 am by Christo »
visitors can't see pics , please register or login

                                                                                            Thanks to cmpxchg8b for the picture!

Offline Joker86

  • Mad & Bad
  • King
  • **********
  • Renown: 1226
  • Infamy: 324
  • cRPG Player
  • Why so serious?
    • View Profile
  • Faction: Companions
  • Game nicks: Joker86_TP
Re: Joker's Osprey Topic - hundreds of pics!
« Reply #6 on: January 29, 2012, 04:28:23 am »
+1
11th spoiler from the bottom?  :?
Joker makes a very good point.
î saved for eternety (without context  :mrgreen:)

Offline Christo

  • Dramaturge
  • King
  • **********
  • Renown: 1844
  • Infamy: 371
  • cRPG Player
    • View Profile
  • Faction: No faction, methinks.
  • Game nicks: Sir_Christo, Christo, Cristo.
  • IRC nick: Christo
Re: Joker's Osprey Topic - hundreds of pics!
« Reply #7 on: January 29, 2012, 04:29:14 am »
+2
Yeah, got it, post re-edited.

I'm a bit tired, it seems.  :)

visitors can't see pics , please register or login


By the way, the armor on the left guy on horseback, is totally identical to mine ingame.

So cool.  8-)
« Last Edit: January 29, 2012, 04:35:44 am by Christo »
visitors can't see pics , please register or login

                                                                                            Thanks to cmpxchg8b for the picture!

Offline Stylin_ATS

  • Knight
  • ***
  • Renown: 55
  • Infamy: 19
  • cRPG Player
    • View Profile
  • Game nicks: Valt_The_Duke_of_Disco
Re: Joker's Osprey Topic - hundreds of pics!
« Reply #8 on: January 29, 2012, 09:32:04 am »
+4
I can certainly see where the inspiration for many of our current armors came from. I'd love to see more Magyar, Byzantine and Ottoman stuff in game.

Offline dodnet

  • Duke
  • *******
  • Renown: 595
  • Infamy: 149
  • cRPG Player A Gentleman and a Scholar
    • View Profile
  • Faction: Wolpertinger
  • Game nicks: DoD, DoD_Wolper
Re: Joker's Osprey Topic - hundreds of pics!
« Reply #9 on: January 29, 2012, 10:21:16 am »
+1
German Medieval Armies 1300-1500
visitors can't see pics , please register or login


The prove that we germans invented breast piercing!  :mrgreen:
The logic of war seems to be that if a belligerent can fight he will fight.

(click to show/hide)

Offline Kansuke

  • Earl
  • ******
  • Renown: 401
  • Infamy: 38
  • cRPG Player Sir White Bishop A Gentleman and a Scholar
    • View Profile
  • Faction: Vanguard
  • Game nicks: Kansuke, LeRun
Re: Joker's Osprey Topic - hundreds of pics!
« Reply #10 on: January 29, 2012, 11:51:51 pm »
0
This is awesome, thank you.

Offline Angantyr

  • King
  • **********
  • Renown: 1134
  • Infamy: 130
  • cRPG Player A Gentleman and a Scholar
    • View Profile
Re: Joker's Osprey Topic - hundreds of pics!
« Reply #11 on: January 30, 2012, 02:21:25 am »
0
Thank you for your time Joker, I own most of these Osprey books myself but it's very nice to have all the illustrations gathered in one place; and especially here where many players might find it a source of inspiration for their characters.

People should be aware though that despite being generally historically accurate by being based on primary sources, Osprey artists have a degree of artistic freedom, and the authors are not always equally well-informed on a given subject (Medieval Scandinavian Armies as a case in point, nothing wrong with the illustrations however). It's usually pretty high quality for its format, though, and in regards to historical illustrations it doesn't get much better.

Offline Joker86

  • Mad & Bad
  • King
  • **********
  • Renown: 1226
  • Infamy: 324
  • cRPG Player
  • Why so serious?
    • View Profile
  • Faction: Companions
  • Game nicks: Joker86_TP
Re: Joker's Osprey Topic - hundreds of pics!
« Reply #12 on: January 31, 2012, 10:24:03 am »
+3
I can't really judge this, as I am not that into historical matters to be able to find "mistakes" in the illustrations (or books, what's wrong with Scandinavian Medieval Armies?), but I guess even if an illustrator takes use of his freedom, there will surely have been a guy who looked like this. I think in the middle ages showing off and looking cool was as important as it was nowadays, perhaps even more, so if someone had the money to look differently, I guess there have been plenty who took advantage of this.  :mrgreen:

At least considering knights and mercenaries.
Joker makes a very good point.
î saved for eternety (without context  :mrgreen:)

Offline Angantyr

  • King
  • **********
  • Renown: 1134
  • Infamy: 130
  • cRPG Player A Gentleman and a Scholar
    • View Profile
Re: Joker's Osprey Topic - hundreds of pics!
« Reply #13 on: January 31, 2012, 03:46:05 pm »
+1
When you do these things the obvious approach would be to look at the various primary sources, be it archaeological finds, contemporary illustrations (for example in an illustrated bible, a church painting, a tapestry etc.) or as in the example of Medieval Scandinavia some of the written material from the historical record describing in detail what equipment the different levies aswell as nobles are required to muster with.

In the case of 'Scandinavian Medieval Armies' some of the best sources are completely ignored, like the 'Konungs skuggsjá', 'Codex Holmiensis' and the 'Hirðskrá', and some of what is written is pure speculation, based on absolutely nothing as far as I can tell (no sources provided). Much of the archaeological record is ignored, too, though admittedly some chapters are of a good enough quality. Let us also not forget the format we're talking here, with so few pages (especially in the case of 'Scandinavian' armies where you have to cover three seperate kingdoms) you are hard pressed as an author to make it fit into one manual.

Same goes for Osprey's take on Vikings, here some frankly wild theories, for example about 'ringborge/Viking circle forts', are put forward, again completely unfounded, and one can only wonder if these authors do not even make the attempt at looking at some of the excellent material that can be found, for example Else Roesdahl's updated version of 'Vikingernes Verden' which with its summary-style format fits that of Osprey's quite well - aswell as being well-documented and written by a leading authority on the subject.

But Osprey does have its merits as a small-format, pop-history publication; it's usually an excellent overview of many contemporary pictorial references (though sadly mostly in black and white) and as I said in my above post the modern illustrations are often of as good quality as it gets.
« Last Edit: March 20, 2012, 07:47:08 pm by Angantyr »

Offline Bobthehero

  • Duke
  • *******
  • Renown: 515
  • Infamy: 195
  • cRPG Player
  • Grandmaster Ultimate God Of Swashbucklin'
    • View Profile
  • Faction: Bridgeburners
  • Game nicks: Bobthehero_Whals and I am totally not all the Not_Bobthehero alts ever.
  • IRC nick: Buff Swashbuckling
Re: Joker's Osprey Topic - hundreds of pics!
« Reply #14 on: February 13, 2012, 03:39:20 am »
0
I approve of this thread, a lot.

Got ethe Maciejowski bible pictures too?
visitors can't see pics , please register or login
The Narwhals, dedicated swashbuckler part of FCC


Stabbing is my speciality and one hitting people, my art