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Jun 2023

This is open to novel authors as well.

For my newest comic, I just had to purchase a model 18 wheeler for reference and visual aid. I'm curious what others have had to look up or outright buy to help with your creation process?

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    Jun '23
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    Jun '23
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I research some of the most niche questions about the Victorian era. Like what kind of flavors did they have? How did they go to the bathroom? What kind of music was popular? What were the strangest trends they had?

A few of their strange trends. Using beetle wings as decoration, the wealthy ate mummies for medical purposes, decorations made of hair. (Especially if it was your significant other) All sorts of things.

I wanted to know what people did in Elsie’s time and what I learned they did normal things and did weird things like is now.

Not strange, I bought immersive RPG 'Kingdom Come Deliverance' when on sale in order to to help me design my story village. Also after playing 100+ hours checking medieval villages in & out, I'm able to draw the landscapes & scale of distance bit better now.

There’s many things I didn’t cover about my research I’ve done for Elsie but that would take a very long time.

For Cracking Eggs I did research on only different decades of the 20th century 1955 onwards. It takes place in the 21st century but I just took what I knew about British culture and lingo. That’s another long story all together.

This was for work, but I read papers on microbiology, zoology and physics for a couple of sci-fi projects.

Top 3:

  • "What volume of air injected into deltoid muscle is lethal?"
  • "Average price of black market human lungs"
  • "Ocular teratomas" google image search (do not recommend)

No you shall not have context other that it was all for writing purposes only.

What sharks they have in Denmark, arteries in the tongue, how much blood teenagers have..

Probably that time I started researching werewolf lore, particularly in medieval Europe. Very interesting stuff, very strange though and was not expecting the nazi connection to old-timey werewolf traps, but I probably should have, knowing they were into occult stuff.

I'm more amazed by what I didn't have to buy for reference for a few scenes in my comic: a medieval crossbow. We have a replica one hanging on the wall. Bought it almost 20 years ago. Ended up being VERY helpful for one of the villains in chapter one.

Imagine you have a jealous partner and they would check your google search history and
your reference folders. The range is from cannibals to golf rules. I don´t know, it´s all strange
when it adds up

For me it has to be... drying clothes in the USA :sweat_02:

See, there is this one teeny-tiny sentence in my comic, in which a character says that he picked a pair of boxer shorts from the "clothing line outside". When I wrote it, I didn't really think much of it. You wash your clothes, you put them on a clothingline and let them dry, end of the story. That's how it works in Italy. There's absolutely no reason it'd be different in the USA, right?

...Wrong :'D

Some months later, I stumbled upon this podcast in which an Italian expat talks about US culture shocks and I found out that... actually, most people in the US have a dryer for their clothes. And some places downright put a BAN on clothing lines. I did some research and found out that there is quite a lot of debate over the "clothing line vs dryer" issue. I also found out that, in cold climates, clothes can downright FREEZE outside. Living in an area that is fairly hot and where it never snows, I admit that I never, ever thought of that being a possibility :'D

I eventually decided to leave the clothingline sentence where it was in my comic (my character lives in a fairly isolated area which probably wouldn't be subject to strict HOA rules + he doesn't have a whole lot of money to spend on fancy appliances), buuuuut... the whole experience definitely teached me to look more into potential US culture shocks I may have not considered before :sweat_02:

Most of the stuff I had to research was NSFW related, mostly for commissions. I consider a few things weird but this gal doesn't judge, especially if the money can pay an entire Christmas lololol

Summary

So basically is mostly animals, certain animal body parts, certain body parts, how "glue" works, certain fluids or "Organic waste" (I know the way I'm phrasing it is very simplistic but I rather leave it like this than actually detail these things for real xD)

But in terms of having to purchase something... I believe not? At least I don't recall having to buy something to utilize on my work

Oh god this is why I set my comic in France, at least I can just look outside to check what the roadsigns and pavement markings look like TT Setting stories in other countries is so daunting because you never know what tiny thing you thought was normal just doesn't happen elsewhere.

I was going to set my new comic in a different country than my own and watched a couple tv shows to get a feel for the streets, housing layouts, etc. but the street signs/lines in the road are so different I was flabbergasted! just yanked my boy across the pond and kept him from that place instead lol

Ya'll, just use google maps to scout locations for writing. You can use street view to get a lay of the land.

Also, about US laundry, I live in LA and it gets warm enough that you can absolutely dry clothes on the line most of the time, but a lot of people in the city live in apartments so don't have the room (unless they have a balcony). Most people without a washer/dryer use a laundromat or may have one for tenants to use in their building.

Most the people in this thread are comic creators. Using street view is pretty common, but if you are not from the country it's unlikely you know what a lot of things mean. You can write 'they stop at a stop sign' for a script but doesn't mean said stop sign is the stop sign you know from your own country.

I even went as far going to the DMV website of the country to try to get a PDF of signs/beginner driver guide but they didn't seem inclined to give that info out unless you're looking to get a license. I probably could have tried harder, but the comic changed so much it was easier to place it in my own country in the end.

I meant more as in the way streets are laid out in general because some places, even in the same country, have very different layouts. Even with writing, you have to figure these things out so you don't have inconsistencies in settings because you mentioned something that doesn't exist in your book's setting or works differently. Surprisingly, a lot of people don't do this which is why I mentioned it. For signs, I've found some cool resources through other people, like this one for Japanese signs.

Yep totally understandable, writing is just as much of a pain for consistencies as comics are. The problem with street view I find is sometimes the 360 view has photos that are 2 or more years old, depending on the place. So, especially for cities, if the photo is from 2021 or earlier those business might not even be there anymore. That's why I keep my locations vague and just focus on consistencies that spell out 'okay this probably set in America or wherever.'

Yep, I just straight up not specify which contry my comic is set in, because I have no idea XD

(Mostly I wanted to draw bagged milk and shelf toilets in the same setting :stuck_out_tongue: )

How do you understand papers from so many different fields? o_o (I can't even understand papers from my own lmao :'D)