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An Eclectic Assortment of Miniature, Modeling, Art, Reference and Gaming Sites for your amusement, enlightenment, and resting your weary eyeballs- Now featuring sporadic updates, haphazard organization, and occasional insightful commentary. If you have any interesting sites you would like me to post, or notice any dead links or sites that have been taken over by some folks purveying unrelated naughtiness, drop me an email:
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Feel free to scroll your little mouse off, or use the handy navigation links below: Tools, Supplies and Useful Stuff Remember, Superglue can close cuts! General Miniature, Modeling and Gaming Sites Some you may have overlooked Anatomy OOooOooOoo- nekkid ladies, I betcha! Horses Obsolete in battle, but it's hard to eat a Hummer Assorted Critters Sorry, no recipes Dinosaurs No, smartass, my picture is not there Armor, heraldic, and historical sites and no, I wasn't there at the time Interesting Miscellaneous Art Sites and Online Galleries From classical to fantasy Assorted Literary Links Don't worry, there are pictures for you illiterate types Graphics Editing and Web Stuff And mostly free stuff! Tools, Supplies and Useful Stuff Model Railroad & Miniature Figure Life Size Scale Calculator- A handy calculator I swiped from here and adapted for determining scale size in millimeters for figures- if you want to download the html file to your computer, just save the page to whatever folder you want and it should work for you The Compleat Sculptor -you supply the talent, they supply the rest Grifhold.com- your complete online source for the best hobby knives, burnishers, blades, tools and more- the 24-E Stencil Blades are especially useful Widget Supply has a huge inventory of hard to find, but reasonably priced hobby tools and equipment. Mini sculptors and modelers should check out the extensive dental tool section MisterArt.com is great place place to shop for discount art supplies and craft supplies Micro-Mark is THE mail-order source for hard-to-find tools and supplies for hobby, professional and educational model building ProCreation- news and views of Tim Mayer, technical and operations manager of The Kraftmark Company, manufacturer and distributor of materials for the arts and crafts industry Material Safety Data Sheet Online Info- Safety information for lots of chemicals we use in sculpting, painting and modelling Free graph paper printer program (Windows OS) Need a hex map? Choose the grid size and color and print it out, along with dozens of other graph paper styles NEW! Check out all the printable castles and other related RPG buildings at Free Paper Toys General Miniature, Modeling and Gaming Sites Tom Meier is an inspiration to everyone in the miniatures world- check out his blog and you'll see why Chambers of Miniatures Nexus- Nearly every mini site and manufacturer TMP- The Miniatures Page The Stuff of Legends- Tom Pope's slow descent into MINI MADNESS! planetFigure - a large and talent-filled web community with great forums, galleries, and resources covering many aspects of creating and painting a wide variety of miniatures Tabletop Gaming News is a website devoted to publishing news, review and articles about all facets of the tabletop gaming hobby. GamingReport.com- Daily coverage of news from the industry, reviews, and interviews OgreCave.com has unplugged gaming news and views Living Dice is pretty nice gaming forum ICv2 provides news and information for pop culture retailers with daily trade news, in-depth analysis, and product and sales information RPGNow.com is an electronic delivery system (EDS) for role-playing games: rule books, modules, fiction, paper miniatures, software, and more! What this simply means is that you can purchase products in their store and immediately download them for use on your home computer. RPG.net has the inside scoop on gaming Pen & Paper- A collection of resources for pen and paper RPGs Plastic Soldier Review, for news and information on 1:72 scale plastic soldiers ScaleModel.net- International List of Scale Model Related Web Sites FineScale Modeler Magazine Online- Loads of modelling info- requires free registration The Train Collectors Association, headquartered in Strasburg, Pennsylvania, is one of the largest and most prestigious collecting societies in the world. NEW! Fine Art Models builds museum-quality limited-edition scale models that many feel are the finest in the world today The Strong Museum of Play, one of the best toy museums in the country The Gallery of Monster Toys is dedicated to preserving vintage creepy fun- I always loved the old Aurora kits in the 60's wing Back to the Top Anatomy NEW! Muscle Atlas -An illustrated atlas of the muscles of the upper and lower extremities Arnold Classic- Everybody loves barbarians Lots of good muscle reference photos with more mustache wax than steroids: History of Bodybuilding and a tribute to Eugen Sandow and the first modern bodybuilders. Eugen Sandow and the Golden Age of Iron Men Basic Anatomy for The Artist Da Vinci Anatomical Drawings Rey Bustos- A very imaginative and informative site by an excellent art educator Freedom of Teach- A creative resource where artists teach artists Gray's Anatomy of the Human Body Human Anatomy Pictures for Artists Muscles Tutorial Drawn mainly from the collections of the National Library of Medicine, Dream Anatomy shows off the anatomical imagination in some of its most astonishing incarnations, from 1500 to the present Anatomy Atlases is an anatomy digital health sciences library Posing is an Art 3-Many free poses e-Skeletons Project View the bones of a human and other primates Real photographs of the human skeletal system Skulls Unlimited- The World's Leading Supplier of Osteological Specimens Bone Clones Human and critter osteological reproductions The Sedlec Ossuary- Where human bones become art Society of Figurative Arts- Dedicated to providing high level instruction for the beginner, amateur or professional striving to expand their individual creative skills-excellent tutorials, links, and forums For assorted anatomical photographs of female pulchritude and little else, try W!cked Weasel B!K!N!s- not even remotely safe for viewing at work, and certainly not around the significant other Back to the Top Horses
Model Horse Central has tons of model horse links, and is run by the talented Carrie Sapp, whose work you can view at Cedar Creek Designs Realistic Equine Sculpture Society Horse Breeds- Oklahoma State's comprehensive horse database Anatomy in Motion: The Visible Horse is a unique demonstration by Susan Harris, in which she paints the muscles and skeletal system on a living horse to show how the anatomy of the horse works in motion at all gaits. Veryl Goodnight- Sculpting the American West The Model Horse Gallery has over 14,000 photos, 200 galleries and 1700 pages Horses On The Web has a lot of good info about Arabians Heather Jansch Bronze and Driftwood Equine Sculpture Back to the Top Assorted Critters National Geographic- More great critter pictures than you would have time to look at, let alone sculpt Will's Skull Page-The head bone's connected to the.... SKULLS- Lots of different species from the nice folks at the California Academy of Sciences Wing Photos- If you're sculpting feathers, check out this great photo archive from the Slater Natural History Museum at the University of Puget Sound Beautiful Bugs- a place where you can see some amazing extreme close-up insect photos Insect photography by Alex Wild, with an emphasis on ant species. Includes galleries of images and wallpapers. Back to the Top Dinosaurs NEW! Art Dinouveau is an Australian-based model-making company specialising in the creation of museum- quality, life-size dinosaur models and prehistoric dioramas. CM Studio produces realistic dinosaur models and sculptures in both life-size and scale models. Micheal Trcic -the sculptor of the T-Rex used in the "Jurassic Park" movies and the IMAX feature "T-Rex: Back to the Cretaceous", offers dinosaur sculptures in bronze and model kits Paleoartist Mark Hallett illustrates prehistoric life and environments, and has created dinosaur art for National Geographic, Disney, Universal Studios and many others Dinobase is a database/directory of dinosaurs discovered. An excellent tool for amateurs as well as palaeontologists.hosted by the Department of Earth Sciences at University of Bristol in the U.K. It combines news and pictures with an extensive database of dinosaur facts and information. William Monteleone - Natural History Sculptor Prehistoric Planet- Critters even older than I Luis V. Rey's Art Gallery- Dinosaurs and Paleontology John Sibbick Illustration- Prehistoric, natural history, and fantasy art DinoData.net- A huge dinosaur portal with loads of great info and pics Search4dinosaurs.com will help you locate great illustrations of dinosaurs Back to the Top Armor, heraldic, and historical sites NEW! Check out Reenactor.Net- the world-wide, on-line home of historical reenacting! NEW! Welcome to HistoryOfWar.org They aim to make their site your first call for information on any aspect of military history. Your probably won't live long enough to read it all- be prepared to lose a few days just getting to the B section Best of History Web Sites is an award-winning portal created for history teachers, students, and general history enthusiasts. BOHWS contains annotated links to over 1000 history web sites as well links to hundreds of quality K-12 history lesson plans, history teacher guides, history activities, history games, history quizzes, and more throughout its pages NEW! JuniorGeneral.org promotes the use of historical simulations as a tool for teaching history by providing free resources that anyone can use. 1000's of free military reference downloads Rome Exposed- the site geared toward the spreading of information on Roman Life throughout the Internet. In the other sections of Classics Unveiled, you can find information on Greek Mythology, Roman History and Latin Vocabulary and Derivatives The Society for Medieval Military History The BBC's History Homepage has loads of information and links, as well as supplemental features for their many excellent programs such as Battlefield Britain ARMA - the Association for Renaissance Martial Arts, is an educational non-profit organization dedicated to the study and practice of historical fencing and the exploration and promotion of our Western martial heritage Arador Armour Library- Arms and armour education HistoricalWeapons.com- Historically accurate representations of weapons and armor myArmory.com helps educate the collector and enthusiast regarding the various aspects and particulars of the modern replica Knighthood, Chivalry & Tournaments Resource Library- Information on armour, weapons, clothing, accoutrements, including both "how tos" and historical material MEDIEVAL ARMOUR- articles and links on armour as it applies to the Middle Ages, the SCA and to SCA combat. Knights in Central Park armor collection from the Metropolitan Museum of Art has more than fourteen thousand objects from many countries and covers fourteen centuries of history Medieval Reproductions-Loads of Armor MuseumReplicas.com- Historical and fantasy arms and armor from the nice folks at Atlanta Cutlery Pictorial Glossary of Armor Terms-based heavily on the glossary in Arms and Armor of the Medieval Knight Global Effects Inc. manufactures, sells and rents all types of props, costumes, armor, miniatures, sets, creatures and makeup effects for TV, movies and museums. Amethyst's Prop Closet has lots of nice armor reproductions, with an emphasis on fantasy and sci-fi Toledo Swords- Another dealer in fantasy and historical toadstickers Castles.org- Castles, palaces and monasteries including: castle tours, medieval architecture, hotels, travel, plans, weddings, castles for sale, souvenirs, books, directory, site of the week, and history of castles. Grey Company Trebuchet page- Medieval WMDs Modar's Heraldry Page A Heraldic Primer, from the nice folks at the Society for Creative Anachronism Heraldry Links How to draw Celtic knots (or sculpt them) Odin's Castle of Dreams & Legends- A massive archive of historical resources NetSERF- The Internet Connection for Medieval Resources Gode Cookery is an extensive and enlightening guide to life, food, and the arts of the Middle Ages NEW! Welcome to Exploring the Middle Ages, where you will find information on heraldry, myths and legends, religion, medicine, and other aspects of life in Britain during the Middle Ages Images of Medieval Art and Architecture- Watch your apse! Electronic Journals of Martial Arts and Sciences contains a lot of good historical information and occasional illustrations on the varied arts and styles of opening up a can o' whoop ass. Check out the Journal of Western Martial Art and the Journal of Manly Arts: European and Colonial Combatives, 1776 - 1914 The Defence of DUFFER'S DRIFT- The classic in small unit tactics, this Boer War scenario still has sound lessons for today's infantryman, as well as being a great wargame adventure. I reformatted the book and cleaned up the graphics to make it easier to navigate Vinkhuijzen Collection of Military Costume Illustration- Nearly 20,000 prints, drawings, watercolors, and printed book and magazines illustrations of military costume NEW! Prints, Drawings and Watercolors from the Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection- The artwork vividly documents all aspects of military and naval history, with emphasis on the history and illustration of world military and naval uniforms from the 17th century to the present The Selected Civil War Photographs Collection contains 1,118 photographs. Most of the images were made under the supervision of Mathew B. Brady, and include scenes of military personnel, preparations for battle, and battle after-effects. The collection also includes portraits of both Confederate and Union officers, and a selection of enlisted men. The North American Indian by Edward S. Curtis- Library of Congress online image collection Native American History was created by the University of Washington Libraries' Reference and Research Services Division and provides users with an "Annotated list of links to Native American history sites." Images of Native Americans: The Bancroft Library Costumer's Manifesto- A huge costume reference portal New York Public Library Digital Gallery- over 275,000 images digitized from primary sources NEW! World War I Color Photos -"World War I.... who would have thought there were original color photos of WWI? This site contains hundreds of photos taken by the French in the last two years of World War One." Shorpy.com is a photo blog about life a hundred years ago- a great source for period character study, with tough people in tough times The Old Picture internet site features an extensive collection of original, historical photographs, including over 80,000 images spanning the years 1850 to 1940. "These photographs span the globe, and capture the defining moments of our collective history" NEW! Smithsonian Photography Initiative - "Welcome to the Smithsonian Photography Initiative. With this website and other innovative programs to come, we hope to open new doors for you Ń both to the Smithsonian's extraordinary collections of photographs and to an understanding of the integral roles photographs play in our lives They Drew Fire- the combat artists of World War II NEW! Historical Military Pictures and Photos from WWII & Vietnam- Explore the largest free collection of historical US Military photos from WWII and Vietnam on the Web—digitized by Footnote from the vaults of The National Archives Military Posters of 20th Century has a huge collection Russo-Japanese war, WW1, WW2, Civil Wars in Russia and Spain, Cold War. About 1800 posters at all NEW! Historic Aircraft Drawings by Josef Hueber - fascinating aircraft design drawings and photos of some unusual experimental, military, and commercial aircraft Modern Firearms & Ammunition- Online encyclopedia of firearms and ammunition of the 20th and 21st centuries The Gun Zone will be the primary resource of authoritative firearms-related information for the Internet-enabled gunperson Back to the Top Interesting Miscellaneous Art Sites and Online Galleries The Artcyclopedia is an index of online museums and image archives:find out where the works of over 8,000 different fine artists can be viewed online ArtLinks allows users to browse or search for links within a group of topical headers: Animation, Architecture, Comics, Dance and Literature, just to name a few The Timeline of Art History is a chronological, geographical, and thematic exploration of the history of art from around the world, as illustrated especially by the Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection At the Coudal Partners Museum of Online Museums, you will find links from our archives to online collections and exhibits covering a vast array of interests and obsessions Art Images for College Teaching (AICT) is a personal, non-profit project of its author, art historian and visual resources curator Allan T. Kohl Intute has a free guide to the best of the Web for the Arts and Creative Industries. It allows users to search or browse for information on a variety of art disciplines: Architecture, Advertising, Crafts, Design. and many others The Web Gallery of Art is a virtual museum and searchable database of European painting and sculpture from 12th to mid-19th centuries African tribal art-Wooden and bronze statues, masks, totems & symbols Here is a fine selection of Oni demon masks and sculpture A Love of Monsters- Gargoyles and Architectural Sculpture in NYC Walter S. Arnold, Sculptor-Stone Carver. Get your gargoyles here! Ian Miller has done some amazing work in fantasy illustration Beej's Pirate Image Archive- ARRRGGH!!!!!! Fantasy art of Elfwood The Official Frazetta Art Gallery NEW! FrankFrazetta.org- The UNOFFICIAL Frank Frazetta Fantasy Art Gallery has a lot of quality scans that the official site does not provide The Official Boris Vallejo and Julie Bell Website The Official Hajime Sorayama Website Illustrator Biographies The work of illustrator Alphonse Mucha is a valuable source for figurative study- here is another nice selection of Mucha's Art Nouveau posters, lithographs, and illustrations ImageNETion- Huge galleries of pin-ups, fantasy art, comic and digital art The Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Artists Draconika.com I think they like dragons An assortment of Fantasy Art NEW! Despite the goofed up navigation and IE only web design ArtHistory.cc has a massive selection of quality scans of the work of many popular fantasy artists, as well as the more classic masterpieces NEW! The Pin-up Files- contains over 1500 pin-up art images from "classic" and "contemporary" artists. Galleries are devoted to each featured artist. Each gallery contains artwork, a biography, notes on each image and important links I was always a big fan of movie poster artist and illustrator Reynold Brown, who's artwork was often far better than the movies it was advertising. Here's Brown's section at Learn About Movie Posters. Art's Not Dead Dot Com has the largest selection on the net of vintage pinup and pulp posters, hard to find movie posters, fine art and WWII, WWI, Spanish Civil War, and Great Patriotic War posters and prints Martian Factory- is a collective of top industry artists with an emphasis on larger kits- lots of links, products and info Shiflett Brothers- These boys do some interesting work The CS Moore Studio and sculptor Clayburn Moore proudly present premier licensed and original statues, busts and more Epilogue.net Art Galleries Back to the Top Assorted Literary Links The Fantastic in Art and Fiction- from the nice folks at the Cornell University Library Nonsenselit.org is a portal devoted to Nonsense literature, with a lot of great illustrations and art links as well as the fun prose and poetry Encyclopedia Mythica- An expansive and comprehensive database and portal Welcome to the Theoi Project, a comprehensive guide to the Gods (Theoi), Spirits (Daimones) and Monsters (Theres) of ancient Greek mythology and religion Browse through folktales and legends from around the world! The Medieval Beastiary: Here begins the book of the nature of beasts. Of lions and panthers and tigers, wolves and foxes, dogs and apes Dave's Mythical Creatures and Places The Serene Dragon, a comprehensive site of dragon, draconic, and dragon-related myths, legends, and tales from around the world Glorious Nonsense- All things Jabberwocky Edgar Governo - Historian of Things That Never Were. 365 Fantasy and Science Fiction timelines from television, movies, books, games and comics Folklore and Mythology Electronic Texts Fables and Fairy Tales A massive online archive of classic tales and childrens stories, with artwork scanned from the original 1909 book illustrations Tarzan of the Internet- A jungle full of great images and links! Barbarian Nation- "This site serves as a tribute to the most powerful and mighty barbarian of them all.. Conan of Cimmeria!" - complete with annoying repeating sound file Barbarian Keep-The Conan and Robert E. Howard Website NEW! Welcome to the Jack Kirby Museum & Research Center-celebrating the life of Jack Kirby and his creations Fantastic Fiction - Fantasy & Sci Fi Literature Database- Information and links for over 6000 authors Check out Jeff Russell's Starship Dimensions PULPS et MAGAZINES AMERICAINS- Outstanding French site with a huge archive of cover art from the great American pulp golden age, featuring fantasy and sci-fi from Amazing Stories to Weird Tales, from the 1920's into the 1960's. Welcome to the Lambiek Comiclopedia, an illustrated compendium of over 7,000 comic artists, listed under last name (or pseudonym) For those of us who remember when comic books cost 10˘, Superdickery features the unintentional hilarity and the thinly veiled lurid innuendo of old comic book covers, mostly old DC, but with lots of good references Cover Browser - displays galleries of comic book covers for comic book fans & enjoy (there's also links to find out more about individual comics or to buy them). Some of the artists you'll find : John Byrne, Barry Windsor-Smith, Frank Miller, Ivan Brunetti, Alex Ross, Todd McFarlane, Mark Bagley, Steve Ditko, Jim Lee, Daniel Clowes, Neal Adams, Jim Aparo, Jack Kirby, Rob Liefeld, Andy Kubert, John Romita Sr. and Jr., Sam Keith, Dave Gibbons, Erik Larsen and many more. Crime Boss-Crime Comic Book Art- Dangerous dames with gats and gams galore! The cover art of 1960s-80s Warren comics CREEPY, EERIE and VAMPIRELLA, as created by a literal Who's Who of fantasy artists. Flash-enhanced site; English-language, hosted in Japan. Back to the Top Graphics Editing and Web Stuff Welcome to TinyURL! Are you sick of posting URLs in emails and forums only to have it break when sent causing the recipient to have to cut and paste it back together? By entering in a URL in the text field below, we will create a tiny URL that will not break in email postings and never expires. For godsakes, will you morons use this?!?!?! Nobody wants to paste 9 lines of crap into the address bar just to look at your damn picture! Google has released Picasa 2, a digital image tool that has more features than the previous version. And, it's still FREE! You can edit, fix digital photos and even post them to a blog. Might be worth a look IrfanView is a very fast, small, compact and innovative FREEWARE (for non-commercial use) graphic viewer for Windows 9x/ME/NT/2000/XP. Here are three more free graphics editors with more advanced features: GIMP Pixia PhotoPlus HTML Code Tutorial "Our goal is to provide the most helpful and complete guide to creating web pages anywhere" The Webpage Color Selection Tool is pretty handy for setting up safe and easy on the eyes colors on your page NEW! At In obscuro, you'll find the amazing dark art gallery of Nela Dunato, as well as lots of great graphics and web design tutorials, tips and art resources Blambot- Comic Fonts and Design- Nate Piekos is a great comic artist and designer with lots of cool free and pay fonts on his site, along with good entertaining info and links about comics, illustration, typography, and design. Bill Blinn has been making computers understandable for many years- check out his site, Techbyter.com for his weekly column and podcast Back to the Top
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