I would like to start a thread that gathers together as many links as we can find depicting pictures of the medieval to renaissance period. These links can include anything from buildings to maps, weapons to attire.

I find that having visual aides really helps players -- especially those not familiar with the period to gain an appreciation and have a better understanding of the setting.

I'll go first with a brilliant link I found during a random weapons school search. The pictorial contents are awesome and of a Polish man's personal collection of all sorts of arms and armor. The 'Katalog' contains the pictures

Weapons and armor:

www.muzeumbroni.pl/page4.php

I'll be back with more once work is done and I have some research time available. Enjoy!!!

Here is another link that contains several maps of the period to give an idea on what to describe or better yet, what to artistically create as a handout!

Maps:

renaissancemaps.com/archive

Steuben's painting of the Battle of Tours. Even though it doesn't necessarily capture realism directly it captures that romanticised notion of massive medieval battles and depicts some rather average looking people fighting "in the teeth" of it:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/Steuben_-_Bataille_de_Poitiers.png

Albrecht Altdorfer's painted the Battle of Alexander at Issus. Again, it's not an official medieval set peice but one that was created in the medieval/renaisance time period and gets a bit of flair right for Warhammer.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/64/Albrecht_Altdorfer%2C_The_Battle_of_Alexander_at_Issus.jpg

In terms of later medieval-to-renaissance period plate armour, this gent has done some interesting work laying it out in a simple to-the-point breakdown in easily digested cartoon format (ken-dollesque anatomy alert):

http://characteranatomy.blogspot.com/2010/07/medieval-armor.html

There are some great B&W architectural and landscape photos from Europe here. Some stuff is too recent, but most are quite relevant to a campaign in the Old World.

http://www.terragalleria.com/black-white/europe/

http://www.terragalleria.com/pictures-subjects/renaissance-architecture/

-Thorvid

Oooo, great thread idea Lester. I don't have any specific threads but wanted to add a tip. You can get a lot of mileage out of just browsing a google image search of many of the common terms that come to mind: "medieval portrait" "medieval town" "fantasy portraits" (be careful with any image search using the term "fantasy"...tis a strange world out there) "Renaissance portraits" etc. You can even do more specific stuff like Beastmen and other fantastic creatures.

I imagine that if you really like photoshopping it would be pretty easy to even give portraits a more warhammery feel via some scars or discolorations.

Shameless theft - I included the galleries mentioned on my inspiration lists at my blog.

you have to dig just a bit because this archive covers such a VAST amount of time, but man, are the costume illustrations outstanding. some could be straight from the Reikland.

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boy, i wish i could figure out how to format these links a bit nicer!

Check out the Mair manuscripts, too. Here's a nice page from one of those wondrous fighting manuals:

daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/~db/bsb00007894/images/index.html

Go here for more:

paulushectormair.blogspot.com/