Get into a conversation with almost anyone about the internet and you'll quickly determine that there are decidedly two camps. Either they think the internet is the best thing since the invention of the wheel or that it is the cesspool where demons are spawned. A quick examination of my e-mail basket shows items from both schools of thought. Among the advertisements for Viagra, penis enlargement creams, pills and machines, porno sites, mortgage rate material and other crap are real gems. I always wonder why they think I need that stuff anyway and if I ever run for political office and the media reads my e-mail what kind of profile will get published.
My computer has come to dominate my free time, except when my hobby calls.
It has truly become my portal to the world, both "The World" at large as well as the wargaming world in specific. In fact this article was prepared digitally, emailed to MWAN for submission. I am sure it will be electronically entered into the publisher's page layout and may end up electronically on Magweb for reading and downloading later. My e-mail address is attached which is always dangerous as you never know who will respond now that the hobby may become more controversial. I check my e-mail before phone messages. There is no good news in the snail mail. My communications are prepared, distributed and consumed electronically. Add tech-head to all the other adjectives describing me.
This article is not intended to add weight to the argument that the printed word is dead. I own an extensive library of reference material for a variety of periods. Osprey Publishing and Angus McBride both hold a special place in my heart. My intention here is to assist the serious painter in their search for practical graphic reference material. Timely, accurate and accessible information is available at the touch of the fingertips. What famous Civil War general said "the firstest with the mostest". When I need information I can't wait for mail order.
I'm going to use some recent examples of research projects to illustrate the recommended research methods and the depth of material available for painters. Most of the examples are not run-of-the-mill uniform color type issues. If you want to know what Civil War Confederate Artillerymen wore, what color and markings are appropriate, the formal historically researched illustrations found in artwork and contemporary photographs are best. Actually if you are going to the public library go to the children's section as these books contain many more illustrations. However using my method is still viable.
Most internet surfers are familiar with the standard search engines and techniques out there. Engines such as Ask Jeeves, Yahoo, Alta vista etc. sort the internet by the text the articles contain. Few know that there are engines that actually sort the internet by the images that articles and web sites contain. My resident Alpha Tech, data guru and digital top banana claims that "those that know" use the Google.com search engine. I use it exclusively now. Google has the option of searching the internet by images. Go to google "Images" and bookmark it into your favorites section.
Recently I was designing a wargame for use at the upcoming Hurricon Wargaming Convention in Tampa, Fl. The French and Indian Wargame scenario calls for Roger's Rangers to sneak up on a sleeping Indian Village. (Damn, More controversy) I was designing some random events to throw some curve balls into the game and added in a chance to stumble upon a bear in the woods. Now I had two more problems. Who makes bears and what do they look like? I located some attacking bears from the Old Glory Gladiator series. Now I needed to find out what color are bears. Google came to the rescue.
Here's how it works. The process is a combination of a Power Point slide(s) and google image search. Most computers have the Microsoft suite of applications installed, which usually includes power point. Call up a blank slide on the screen. You will now put it aside until later. Minimize the screen using the small minus sign in the tool bar. Now go to the google image search site you bookmarked earlier. In the search engine blank space I typed in grizzly bear and hit the search button.
When your search results came up you will notice approximately 20 small pictures of the subject you are researching all laid out in neat rows and columns. At the bottom of the page is a line with numbers indicating how many pages of pictures are available. With the bear inquiry there were 12 pages of 20 pictures. I got to pick through 240 pictures and settled on 11 as representing the color variations and shading needed to accurately represent a bear. In addition the face, nose, eye and claw details were pictured.
When you click on any individual picture you will be taken to another screen. This will be a split screen. On the top will be a slightly larger picture, and other information you may be interested in. On the bottom portion will be the actual web site the picture is from. If you want to search the entire web site you can click on the text indicating the website or just take your cursor to the bottom section and double click. If you just want to examine the picture scroll your cursor to the top portion and click on the line that says "see image alone". It will be just below the actual picture. Click on this line and everything but the image alone disappears. The picture will be at its largest size. This is the picture you will want to use.
I usually pick a picture that has good color, especially if it is artwork as opposed to a photograph. The artist will have done your work for you by clearly defining what colors go where and has probably used colors actually in your paint tray. At this point you are ready to construct your picture array on your power point slide.
You should have previously set up a single blank power point slide and minimized it to your toolbar. While in google images examining the image alone, right click on the picture. A small pull down menu should appear which has the word "copy" in it. Click on "copy". This will transfer the picture to your clipboard. Now scroll down and click on your power point application you placed on your toolbar earlier and your blank slide should come up. Now scroll up to the edit function on the upper tool bar (at least that is where mine is) and hit paste. Your picture should now appear on the slide.
If the google image search revealed multiple copies of the same picture, pick the one that has the most pixels. A picture which has 240 x 240 pixels is better than one that is 180 x 180. I made up the numbers but you get the point. In this case size does matter.
Anyway when you get your picture to show up, click on the picture and small circles appear to surround the picture at corners and in the middle of all sides. Go to a corner circle and click and drag the picture to shrink it to a much smaller size on your slide. Do not use the middle circles as you will distort the picture. Using the corners keeps everything in proportion. You should be able to get about a dozen small pictures per page.
Now minimize your power point screen again and the google image will reappear. Scroll up to the "back" tab on your tool bar and click back to the web site and click back again. This will take you all the way back to the page full of thumbnail pictures on google images. Start the process again till you are satisfied you have a large enough sample of pictures to be useful or time runs out. It has a way of doing that.
In the case of my grizzly bears I had 11 pictures illustrating red brown bears, black bears and honey blonde bears. I had all the small details and a good idea of where shading needed to be applied when painting. I then printed the page on my color printer. I assume you have one also. If not I would recommend saving the presentation on disc or CD for permanent storage and/or printing out later. I believe you can take your discs to print shops and have this done. You can call up the research later and review or click on any individual picture and enlarge it for closer examination.
This research process is valuable for much more than painting detail. I build my own terrain, buildings and recently canoes and gunboats. I typed in "steam launch" and have two pages of pictures. Now I know where to install the steam engine I purchased from the London War Room. I was building some trench systems and typed 'earth works' into the google image search engine and now have a complete catalog of fortifications for several periods. Type in abatis and get some really great pictures. Use your imagination.
I don't want to minimize your ability to do serious historical reference research. I was making a proposal to take a commission on painting some English Archers for a Hastings wargame. I typed in several search key words including, longbow, English archers, Hastings, etc. and came up with three pages of pictures. Material comes from such places as toy soldier companies, model catalogs and model and figure box tops, some book cover art work and many other sources you never expected. The visual truth is out there. Having all these "thumbnail" pictures of possible color schemes was very valuable. I could abstract single or multiple pictures and e-mail them to the customer and get agreement on exactly what the figures would look like without having to mail costly books around the country. I didn't get the contract but now have a nice collection of English and French soldier pictures from that period.
Another benefit of visiting so many web sites of interest is you get to fill up your bookmark/favorites listing with many interesting sites you can visit later. As many of the sites were vendors I now know where to buy almost anything related to wargaming.
And now let's have a word about copywriting. It would be easy to say who cares, but you should. I don't think I have broken any laws doing my own personal research however I don't do much downloading and sharing much less selling anything I copy. I merely harvest ideas for my own personal use.
The ability to find and use pictures, or images of almost anything can be extremely useful. I needed some WWII minefield signs and managed to find them on the internet in an old photo. I downloaded it, cropped out unneeded image, shrank its size, duplicated it is several sizes and printed them on card stock. I had instant authentic minefield markings. I make a lot of flags this way also.
It may be useful to learn to use power point more extensively. At minimum you might pick up any "paint" type program for use with your hobby. I have downloaded many "freebies" from the internet from such sites as paper model sites. Type in "Paper models" in any search engine and see what you get. All my buildings now have decorated interiors such as plank or stone flooring which is commonly available.
Repeat after me, "The internet is my friend, the internet is my friend". Hopefully after this article you can expand your use of the technology to improve your gaming variety and appearance. As for all that other junk that comes in over the wire, we all have a delete button.
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© Copyright 2004 Hal Thinglum
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