Help folks out with research: (ask a question, answer a question) What do people in your country ACTUALLY look like and what are some helpful resources to learn (accurate) information about your culture?

[Leyelle]

Unfortunately, media isn't a very accurate representation of most countries and cultures. At best, it's just extremely limited, so let's help other folks out!

If you have a question about a culture, ask it here, ESPECIALLY if you doubt something you read online. Let's see if there's anyone available to answer your question.

Personally, I need answers from my Pinoy, Indian, and Bengali fellow creators.

I'd love to know what facial features are common for Bengali people and people in northern India, because I'm kind of mistrustful of the image results I get from internet searches.

I'd also like to know what facial features are most common amongst Pinoy people. I have a comic strip about a Dominican-American author and a Pinoy-American illustrator and I'd like to draw the Pinoy girl and her family well XD.

Also if anyone knows of a resource where I can find out what pre-colonial Tagalog people looked and dressed like I'd really appreciate it.

[kyupol]

[Leyelle]

what are the names of the places where these references came from?

[kyupol]

1) gma TV series "Amaya". I know they tried to be historically accurate being a big tv network. They had historians from the University of the Philippines as consultants.

2) Boxer codex - book written in the 16th century by Spaniards who were in the Philippines

[Leyelle]

2) Boxer codex - book written in the 16th century by Spaniards who were in the Philippines

oof, but it's kind of hard to take the conquerors word for it isn't it? I have the same problem with my island's history (Dominican Republic)

[moontokkym]

I don't know about Pinoy people specifically, but for France and Britain I've always found vox pop interviews to be particularly useful to get a sense of how the general population looks and acts, not only with the interviewee but the people in the background going about their day. I'm pretty sure most local news networks do these vox pop interviews for some more cultural stories (as opposed to large-scale international political stuff), so finding a news network that does a lot of those types of local stories is a goldmine because not only do you get the visuals, if you understand the language a bit you can get a snapshot of some opinions about local stories.

For a French example BFMTV does a bunch of these types of interviews on their smaller stories, to the point I was on one a long while back, they're the original Tiktok street interviewers.

[mohdadeebace]

In india, you can get every shades of skin complexion from white to black... like north indian of kashmir are more liike 80 to 90% white... and south indians are mostly like 60 to 90% black. Its all because of the geographical location of india which is almost touching the equator, therefore having hot temprature and solar rays in south and cold temprature in the north. however on the basis of division between north and south states, the indian complexion is more of a brown skin, somewhere between the white to black scale. north Indian are majorly called to the peoples of the center and northern parts of india. therefore they had more of brown to white complexion but if we talk about majorly populated cities of indian like Delhi NCR, Lucknow, mumbai, banglore, chennai complexion really doesn't matter as peoples from all around india lives here for job and studies, As for the bengalis they are more like having a brown oily skin, maybe because of the humidity of the east asia. and the look a bit like the how japanese look, (Not totally but like 10%), However bengali girls can be identified because of a sterotype of them having a thing called Bindi they wear at there forehead, another sterotype can be the men's wearing dhoti and kurta and the women wearing saree... But totally depends on the age group and how much do the want to dress up like this. (Agar koi Indian padh raha hai isse, to please apne thoughts zrur share krna, Mai zada bengalio se mila nahi to maybe galat bol skta hu...)

[mohdadeebace]

And please don't make your character wear kurta pajama and other indian clothes as most of us really wears it occasionally, you can make your character wear normal simple shirt and trousers that would be accurate

[Leyelle]

Yeah, I've been going to the country's local news, blogs written by citizens and street videos too cuz it seemed the most reliable. I Don't have stories set in France yet but maybe someday XD. What were you in an interview about/for?

[Leyelle]

Don't worry, I realize that most people don't wear traditional clothes on a daily basis anywhere in the world. This is what the only Indian character I've put in my comics so far wore (The girl wearing green and orange)

[mohdadeebace]

Make the skin color lighter

[Leyelle]

Excuse me? Why would I make her skin lighter?

[mohdadeebace]

Coz it's too dark for an Indian

[mohdadeebace]

Especially for a bengali

[Leyelle]

Seema Hari would disagree with you. This comic strip is about celebrating girls with dark skin

[mohdadeebace]

Don't take it in the wrong way, But I want to ask this genuine question - If you've already created a character that serves your story well, then why are you asking about the details of indian bengali?

[Leyelle]

Because I want as many perspectives as possible, especially for future stories. But I also am not taking just one person's perspective, especially when other Indians have verified that these statements simply are not true.

[mohdadeebace]

India is a vast country. And whatever complexions you want to give to your character is totally upto you, and it will fit to the characters as well.

[Leyelle]

so why did you tell me to lighten her skin then?

[mohdadeebace]

what statement?????????