HEMA Shopped Pics

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41v, BL Royal 20 C VII - Chroniques de France ou de St Denis 1380-1400; Paris, France British Library

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Chapter 43, Plate XII of Académie de l'Espée, by Girard Thibault d'Anvers. The Right Angle guard of Verdadera Destreza. 

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Master Hans Talhoffer, from his 1467 treatise Cod. icon. 394a.

I also made a gangsta variant for fun:

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From the Complete book of wrestling (Vollständiges Ring-Buch) of Johann Georg Paschen, 1663. Wrestlers train in the hall of Paschen, there are pictures of other great wrestlers and warriors of the past, starting with Hercules on the left.

I intend to clean and reformat the whole ringebuch in a better format than the low-contrast images we now have. This is just a starting point.

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What I enjoy from this image from Peter Falkner is how nicely is the slice illustrated, with the Messer going at a very accurately drawn angle. The Messers in Falkner are themselves weird and pretty.

Dein schneid wend Schneid mit ort biß behend Will er ringen und drucken Stoß ring wer ler zucken

I’ve noticed this blog is getting more popular, and I usually have a hard time deciding what image to touch up. So if any of you have an image you want to see cleaned up, post it, send it to me, and I’ll do it in time. 

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From MS Thott.290.2º, a very clear and beautiful picture of a simple exchange with messer and buckler. Talhoffer is the man!

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A page from the Einige Figuren von Fus-Thurnieren (2º MS Math. 7), German manuscript from the 1630s with some curious illustrations of a tournament on foot. I think this is the only picture of double messers around, but I may be mistaken. Very cool either way, and beautiful colors. I thought about clearing up the background completely, but it actually adds some depth this way, I believe.

The original image is gracefully posted online by the Universitätsbibliothek Kassel.

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Closer look at the last one from  Jörg Breu Draftbook (Cod.I.6.2º.4), sword and buckler and the end of a play.

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A sword and buckler play (or moment), found in several treatises, in this case the Jörg Breu Draftbook (Cod.I.6.2º.4) from 1545. Relatively easy and fast and it looks great, especially close in.

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Penn Bazh

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As I loved to do, I tried to create a more clear and larger version of this image. In this case it lost some of it’s mellowness, not my best attempt.

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Continuing with the Schwertnehmen theme today, here is a taking of the sword from the oldest surviving European fighting treatise, I.33, or the Tower Manuscript.

Grabbing the sword with the bucklerhand might seem weird, but most bucklers will just stay on your hand when you open it to grab a blade, and being able to lock it between the handle and your fingers certainly helps with sliding.

I especially love the eyes of the guy who lost his sword, he is so utterly shocked :D.

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A schwertnehmen from MS Cl. 23842, or the Cluny Fechtbuch. Sword-taking and sword-controlling techniques are a key aspect in historical swordsmanship, present in Liechtenauer, although much more widely covered in Fiore and other treatises. I have personally performed this one countless time, it is a great counter when someone uses Ochs to hide beneath.

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This is the first image of Jakob Sutor’s dussack, a student standing against a cutting diagram, with a teacher explaining to him the key cuts with one-handed weapons. Similar images can be seen in Meyer, but I especially like the weird big puffy pants and the overall style of the art, as well as the scene itself.

Now from the diagram: “A” is the Scheitelhau (vertex/scalp strike) from above as far as the middle, and “E” the Underhau from below again as far as the middle. “B” is the left Oberhau diagonally as far as the middle and “H” the right Oberhau diagonally also as far as the middle. “C” is the left Mittelhau and “G” the right Mittelhaw against each other. “D” is the left Underhau from below as far as the middle, and “F” the right Underhau from below also as far as the middle.

This was a lot of work, as it is one of those images that really makes it hard to answer the question “How far should I go?” when photoshopping these illustrations. I decided to go all the way - every bit that isn’t a line of the figures and the diagram is painted over in an even color from the original. Some details may be lost, but we end up with a more clear picture overall. The original, which you can see bellow, is very unclean because of bleedthrough from the back page and just old and tired paper. This took a couple of hours of hard work with a mouse and steady hands.

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Reposting it. I feel I went a bit far with the lighting on this one when editing, but I wanted to emphasize the details, I worked extra on his right eye. It is a great print, very lively and active. I am not sure if the image is reversed or it is meant to show a left-handed Landsknecht, if so, it is interesting. The axe head is also very nice. 

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The arms and armor department in the Art Institute of Chicago is shut down while they remodel (I saw the plans in December, it’s going to be spectacular in terms of illustrating the items in their context of use), but there were a few items on the Landsknecht on display, including this lively print!

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Great picture, I am hoping all those prints are online at some point, I decided to edit this one a bit.

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Viggiani’s first guard - difensiva imperfetta, a guard from which he delivers his Universal Parry, in a way, a great example of Rennaissance European iaijutsu :). 

“Watch, therefore, Conte, now I hold this sword at my left hip; if I wish to avail myself of it, and use it against you, either to offend you or to defend myself, it will be necessary that I put my right hand here at the hilt of the sword, in order to draw it 67forth, whereby I do this rovescio ascendente with strength, and this is the first blow, originated from the left side, guardia prima, et difensiva imperfetta.”

Not really much editing, I just cleared up specks and tried to bring in a more “drawn” feeling to the illustration.

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Viggiani’s Prima, Defensiva, Imperfetta. Great guard from the scabbard, he instructs to cut from it, similat to the cut that Talhoffer shows - european iaido, basically.