Anybody know??? cogitate

[noble_enough]

Im trying to find good reference books of things from different timeperiods or cultures.

Often when I draw something, If I dont use good referece things looks stereotypical.... Which Im sure is the same with many artists.

so..

Does anyone know any books or good websites that have images of say:
what viking armor looked like,
what Indians wore in the turn of the century,
tribal gear of australian aborigines,
1800s british clothing,
pirates clothes and weapons,
eskimos clothing,
japanese samurai armor,
1700s french royal courts clothing?
Anything and everything really.. no wrong answers.

Im mainly looking for clothing, or armor reference… but buildings and arcitecture and vehicles/ships would be nice too. everything!

Anybody know any good material??

I think this would be a big help for every artist if we could start sharing this kind of reference with eachother :)

[noble_enough]

nobody?......

nothing?......

[Seedling]

You are asking for an entire library. That's a tall order.

[noble_enough]

Apologies,
I was not intending for it to sound like i wanted one person to have a library of all that stuff, I just thought that if people know things, books or websites, we could post them and then be able to have an entire library of reference materials:)

Even if someone only knows one thing, if we all mention something, I think this could be quite beneficial for everyone.

For example,
I got this book a while back.
The Illustrated book of guns, by David Miller.
http://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Book-Guns-Directory-Military/dp/1571452877/ref=sr_1_1/103-3734987-5913451?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1181523224&sr=8-1

its quite large, and has I imagine mostly every gun from the 1800-current day.
great images, perfect to draw from.
Its helpful so I dont draw the same generic guns all the time, or just the guns i might find by googling images of guns.

Hope this helps someone.

[Elwell]

It's all out there. You really need to work on your Google-fu.
For historic costumes, here's (http://www.costumes.org/history/100pages/costhistpage.htm) a good place to start.
Also, the slightest bit of digging/searching on this very site would have gotten you this (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=30).

[noble_enough]

ha!
perfect.

I knew I had seen a reference thread area at one point here on CA.
but I didn't know where, this is a huge help.

thanks Elwell

[IronCalf]

I would start my search there: http://www.ospreypublishing.com/

There is alot of text in their books but also good illustrations and photos about clothing, armor and weaponary, etc.

"What poeple wore" is also not that bad, but maybe not your prefered time periode http://www.amazon.com/What-People-Wore-Illustrations-Twentieth/dp/0486281620

[noble_enough]

Thank you IronCalf.
I'll check this stuff out