Posts that potentially inspire gaming, terrain or other projects. Period photos or graphics, amazing gaming creativity elsewhere, and such.
Second-pulpiest flying machine (after, naturally, the dirigible) the autogyro is barely seen these days but carved out a niche for itself in the 20s and 30s.
There’s a formation of US Army Aviation Corp autogyros being put through their paces. No date on the video, and no identity of which model of autogyro is being demonstrated, which is unfortunate. Still a very cool and pulpy piece of newsreel footage!
(video here on Youtube, if the embedded video fails to show up above)
A friend scored this 1970 classic of our hobby when I was at BottosCon in Vancouver last week, and was kind enough to loan it to me right away, even before he’d had a chance to read it himself. A battered public library copy of this book was my first introduction to the idea of wargaming, when I was 9 or 10 years old! I was already into model building, and the idea of models you could use in games took root and hasn’t let go since…
It’s a fascinating look at what you might call the “early modern” period of wargaming, and demonstrates just how far the whole hobby has come in the intervening forty-some years!
I’m going to be using excerpts and favourite bits as material here as I read through it, but given my current interest in World War One and the Russian Civil War it was Featherstone’s short chapter on WW1 that I turned to first.
He had a novel suggestion for simulating the confusion and fog of war involved in a nighttime Western Front trench raid:
An extremely simple method—ensuring more than realistic confusion, since no one can see what they are doing—is to have the wargames table illuminated only by a small 5-watt lamp painted blue!
I think I’ll stick with Mud & Blood’s blinds, myself.
More quotes and excerpts from this book as they catch my eye!
“Everything is very simple in War, but the simplest thing is difficult.” — Carl von Clausewitz, On War
Richard Clarke of TooFatLardies has written a fascinating post over on his Lard Island blog about friction in games and in reality. Short version: real war is full of things going pear shaped; most gaming systems aren’t. Go read the full article, I’m doing it a terrible disservice with my one-line smartass summary!
Should you want to read old von Clausewitz yourself, Project Gutenburg has an English translation of On War, Vol. One free to download. The short chapter Richard refers to in his post is Chapter VII. Friction In War — even for those of us with short attention spans, well worth a read!
This counts as another prod to get more figures painted for Through the Mud and the Blood, too!
There’s zeppelin on the curent banner for this site, and we’re notorious pulp gamers, so it should come as no surprise that zeppelins are amongst our favourite things here on The Warbard. Sure, they’re often explosive, prone to crashing in a stiff wind and all the rest, but let’s face it, zeppelins are just cool.
In A World More Pulpish (which is a much cooler place than reality) there’d be zeppelins everywhere. One glimpse of how A World More Pulpish might have looked, with zepps overhead, is found in this Feb. 2010 post over on Propnomicon, Zeppelin Goldmine.
Continue reading Zeppelins. We like Zeppelins.
io9, source of much pulpy goodness such as the Tozo comic, has turned its attention to European pulp, covering the period from 1914 all the way through to the end of World War 2 in 1945. Oh the planetary romance, the zombies, and the rise of facism. All is covered within. Just check out the image to the right. It has zeppelins!
As discussed in my last post on entering LAF‘s LPL5, here’s all ten of the images from my 2009 LPL3 entries. I finished somewhere in the bottom third of the pack, but certainly didn’t enter with any expectation of doing much better — I entered to give me incentive to work on my painting and photography, which worked out just fine!
LPL3’s bonus rounds were “Germans” for Round One, which I botched; the German WW1 stormtroopers I did for Round 7 were supposed to be my Round 1 bonus entry, but I ordered them too late. Round 5 was “Cavalry”, which I managed with my first 15mm fantasy unit painted in years. Round 10 was “Lost Worlds”, bonus points for an exploration team, a “native” team and “monster” or similar — pegged max bonus points there, and a photo I’m still proud of!
The entirety of LPL3 is still archived over on LAF.
Another revival from the old Brian’s Wargame Pages version of the site, and one that I should have brought forward ages ago! You can see the Esquimalt Drydock on Google Maps for a sense of scale that wasn’t available ten years ago when I first posted the photos. — Brian, 22 Feb 2011
In the summer of 2001 I was roommates with a guy who worked in the drydock here in town. He turned into a real asshole after being laid off, but while he was still working he gave me a tour of the yard. I brought my camera, and these pics should inspire people looking for new industrial modern or SF scenery projects!
One thing that would be very difficult to reproduce on the gaming table, except maybe in 6mm, would be the sheer scale of the place. I didn’t have my wide-angle lens with me, so I didn’t even try for some real area photos. The drydock itself is 1100 feet long; the two big cranes pictured below are several hundred feet tall. There were two fair-sized ships in the drydock when I was there, and they could have accomodated a third with no difficulty. And this isn’t even that big a drydock, by maritime engineering standards. The ones that can accomodate nuclear-powered aircraft carriers are even bigger…
Wargamers interested in industrial scenery or future-tech industrial landscapes (Necromunda style) should find plenty of inspiration here! Even if you can’t reproduce the scale, the clutter, details and fixtures should provide some ideas.
Click any image below for a (slightly) larger view. Keep in mind these are refugees from the Old Web, when 600px wide was a Big Image.
Egypt, much in the news today as it was in the 1920s when these pictures were taken, is the focus of this photo collection: Egypt in the 1920’s in colour (from How to be a Retronaut). in 1919 a major revolution had occurred, which led to a unilateral declaration of Egyptian independence in 1922 by the British government, which in turn led to the successive revolutions of 1952 and 2011. Actions begetting actions. Despite that, the Egypt of these pictures appears little changed by the millenia of history that have washed over it.
Once you are done, I suggest you see SatNav c. 1930 and the wonderfully-human Australian criminals of the 1920s. Lastly, have a wander through their entire 20s and 30s sections for glimpses at a past gone.
The Tintin series is a great resource for all sorts of pulpy goodness, and in that, vein, comes Tozo – the Public Servant. Just take a look at the artwork: Continue reading Tozo – the Public Servant: a Tintin-esque comic
A necessarily brief, personal and idiosyncratic tour through some websites with noteworthy archives of 1920s/30s posters, postcards, luggage tags and other graphics. Some photos, some stuff that’s technically outside our chosen era but still cool, and far too short, but enjoy, be inspired, and get a feel for the graphics of the pulp era!
Part One of this series introduced Inkscape. Part Two talked about design, typography & fonts.
The American Library of Congress WPA Posters collection, part of their American Memory project, is huge but not that easy to navigate. Start with the Collection Highlights tour, then just start hitting random keywords or subjects to find gems like Yellowstone Park posters, injunctions to clean up your trash, and even hippos. The WPA was the Works Progress Administration, part of the whole New Deal aimed at keeping Americans employed and maintaining national morale during the Great Depression. There was a whole wing of the WPA dedicated to encouraging the arts, including the graphic arts. Hence the really cool posters.
Continue reading Pulp Design Tools & Resources, Part Three: Inspiration
