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has anyone done this yet

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In the running for best picture ever taken

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:o omg hi!!! welcome back!!!

I loved your blog! Seriously when I came across it (all the way back in 2014? 2015? yeesh I've been here forever) it was immediately one of the coolest things I'd come across on the ND side of tumblr. It wasn't until late 2021 that I decided to try any of it myself- honestly the never ending COVID lockdowns in Ontario probably had something to do with it. And then I found it so satisfying that I haven't really stopped! It's not something I'm always working on, but I do keep coming back to it :)

My process is still mostly the same, although I think I've gotten a bit more efficient, just through repetition. But I've never felt prepared to do the art history write-ups you always included - those have always felt just a bit too far outside my wheelhouse.

ack, it's so neat to see you back!

How on earth do you identify all the art? What’s your process lol

hA. erm. slowly and also painfully, basically. I don't have an art history background but I loved when artofnancydrew and littlenancydrewthings used to put their art id posts together and wanted to see if I could figure it out myself, so it's just a lot of trial-and-error and a decent amount of patience.

unfortunately most of the in-game images are too small for google’s reverse/search-by-image thing to pick up, boo. so for paintings I generally end up at wikiart because their advanced search tool lets you filter by genre/style/date of creation. they also have a ‘tags’ feature but it isn’t all that robust - most of the artworks are not comprehensively tagged, so i mostly avoid that. honestly, I usually end up searching by by genre (ie ‘landscape’ or ‘portrait’), use the timeline thing to limit the number of results, and then just. scroll through all of what comes back.

I dearly love the RKDimages database (their TAGGING SYSTEM holy mother of dog it’s FUCKING MIRACULOUS). it’s main focus is Netherlandish art, but seriously, give this thing every gold star on the planet, it’s so damned beautiful. all other databases, get on the RKD’s level. holy frick.

other than that? we know HeR used to use the Corel image library but of course i haven’t had any luck actually finding/accessing said image library. that said, I’ve had some luck plugging the term into wikimedia commons, and then there’s this old site which seems to have significant overlap - I’ve found a few difficult-to-place pictures there. once I know the artist who created a painting I’ll look through the rest of their catalogue, see if any of their other pieces were used as well. I keep a spreadsheet of the paintings/artists I’ve found and which game their art was in. like I said at the beginning, it’s just a lot of trial-and-error.

paintings are really the most straightforward things to identify. photographs and tapestries (fucking treasure in the royal tower making me try and id tapestries) are, in my experience, way harder, and basically ruin my life if I spend too much time thinking about them lmao. the photos in last train to blue moon canyon - I’ve used the US Library of Congress’ digital collections, the Getty institute, the Met, a couple other US museum catalogues/databases.. browsing their collections basically. the LOC has a substantive civil war image collection available online, which is cool. but all that said I still came across the Buck Taylor cabinet card via a random link on a site dedicated to old bicycle photography. because fuck me I guess :P and tapestries are hell on earth. because as it turns out, there’s no handy database for tapestry art. at all. RKD has some, Getty has some, but basically I’ve been browsing through museum collections and trying to find decent images that might lead me in the right direction? until i get fed up and lose my cool and need to go do something else for a bit.

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The Laughing Cavalier (Frans Hals, 1624) and The Man With the Golden Helmet (Circle of Rembrandt, c. 1650) can be found in the kitchen hallways. An Old Woman Reading (Rembrandt, 1655) is up in the library. The Knight with his hand on his breast (El Greco c. 1584) and the Portrait of Federico II Gonzaga (Titian, 1525) are in the upstairs hallway, and Flowers in a Glass Vase (Jacob van Walscapelle, c. 1670) is beside Linda's nightstand.

The two floral paintings in Linda's room are actually from the same work - Image A is the full work, and Image B is the centre portion rotated 90° clockwise

the penvellyn's really have four separate paintings of saint george fighting a dragon on display. yeah that seems normal.

// by Il Sodoma, 1518 // by Raphael, 1506 // by Raphael, 1503/05 // by Rogier van der Weyden, 1432/35 //

top two can be found in the library, bottom two in Linda's room

also- I just need to note that 'Il Sodoma' does translate to 'the sodomite,' a title he chose to adopt and use for himself. a based af attitude I 100% respect, quite frankly.

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"I asked ChatGPT to—" I called Bess and George and they say you're cringe

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Uncovered version of "Dave's picture Nancy, Bess and George" from Nancy Drew: The Secret of Shadow Ranch.

The people in this picture are unidentified.

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Mayan Vases in Secret of the Scarlet Hand - (image sources & etc in alt text)

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Reblog to get a more solid overviewww

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buy it on Redbubble

my Redbubble account

my website

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buy it on Redbubble

my Redbubble account

my website

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a hat for nancy circa alibi in ashes

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Me about to play Fox & Geese

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My new favorite just dropped

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guys im feeling crazy noticing this for the first time after playing this game for YEARS as a child. i guess i never looked at the PDA enough

i read this and thought huh. why did she say point the dog to the correct living room wall instead of point the dog in the right direction?? isn't part of the puzzle determining which direction equals which symbol by going back and forth between the clock and the dogs? .....then i looked at the walls....

each wall has one of the symbols standing out more than the others in the wallpaper....ARE YOU KIDDING ME??????

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So this has become a meme on Reddit lmao.

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This month we're celebrating fans, 95 years of world's favorite detective 🕵️‍♀️ Nancy Drew, and 30 years of HeR Interactive! Watch our Instagram & Facebook stories every single day for a new HeR Vault release with behind-the-scenes art, assets, photos, and more from our archive! 🔐 https://bit.ly/44MU81E

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