WindyCon 36 -- Closing Ceremony
Nov. 15th, 2009 11:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anthimeriaToday my first panel was called "Don't Lick the Wallpaper"--an inspired name if e'er I heard one. Did you know there was an incredibly high arsenic content in Victorian wallpaper? Or that many clothing dyes (and food dyes!) contained lead or arsenic? I didn't until this morning! Not to mention the effect of gas fumes from lamps, pollution so thick you had to change collars and cuffs at least once a day, and daily doses of arsenic to remain pale and beautiful (that would kill you if you lost too much weight too fast, since arsenic is stored in fat).
We learned about the optical illusions in Victorian clothing, the way color changes under gas lamps (which are very yellow), and several stages of Victorian mourning, but I think the "no, really, everything they lived with was poisonous!" will be more useful in conversation.
. . . in the conversations I have, anyway. (Do I have to mention that I'm a writer, and my friends are writers, and we have some very odd conversations? We once spent an hour discussing which superpowers we'd want and how they could work scientifically.)
One presentation today was about the real scientific roots of "Girl Genius," which is of course one of the most successful steampunk stories out there (it's a great webcomic, it's free, go check it out!). The science that inspired Mary Shelly's Frankenstein came up, including a man named Dr. Darwin--Dr. Erasmus Darwin, Charles was his grandson! What was more useful for me as a starting place for research for Skywatch was the automata of the period. Some of these things looked like the Disney automata from the 1950s, only a century earlier! And using different tech (clockwork versus air, though I should look into the history of pneumatics).
I also talked to a pair of dealers who were selling historical reference material, since finding fashion references for Egypt in 1800 has been proving elusive at best. They found a couple of books for me, but suggested I go online and find titles that better fit my specific needs (1800-1880, Egypt, India, and China), and gave me places to start looking, along with their whole catalogue.
I'd call it a fun and productive weekend. I love going to cons, especially cons like this, where I can have a ton of fun and do necessary research for my writing. At some point I'll list the recommendations I got that proved to be the most useful.
Part of me can't wait to start working on Skywatch, though the rest of me is going, "Hold it, girl, you're not finished with The Novel yet!" I think once I get draft III nailed down, I'll be ready to send it to someone else to look over, and while I'm waiting for them to work on it, I'll hit Skywatch hard.
In conclusion: Steampunk is the wave (or at least a wave) of the future. Hop onboard the airship, our captain's not too crazy and the wind is fair!
We learned about the optical illusions in Victorian clothing, the way color changes under gas lamps (which are very yellow), and several stages of Victorian mourning, but I think the "no, really, everything they lived with was poisonous!" will be more useful in conversation.
. . . in the conversations I have, anyway. (Do I have to mention that I'm a writer, and my friends are writers, and we have some very odd conversations? We once spent an hour discussing which superpowers we'd want and how they could work scientifically.)
One presentation today was about the real scientific roots of "Girl Genius," which is of course one of the most successful steampunk stories out there (it's a great webcomic, it's free, go check it out!). The science that inspired Mary Shelly's Frankenstein came up, including a man named Dr. Darwin--Dr. Erasmus Darwin, Charles was his grandson! What was more useful for me as a starting place for research for Skywatch was the automata of the period. Some of these things looked like the Disney automata from the 1950s, only a century earlier! And using different tech (clockwork versus air, though I should look into the history of pneumatics).
I also talked to a pair of dealers who were selling historical reference material, since finding fashion references for Egypt in 1800 has been proving elusive at best. They found a couple of books for me, but suggested I go online and find titles that better fit my specific needs (1800-1880, Egypt, India, and China), and gave me places to start looking, along with their whole catalogue.
I'd call it a fun and productive weekend. I love going to cons, especially cons like this, where I can have a ton of fun and do necessary research for my writing. At some point I'll list the recommendations I got that proved to be the most useful.
Part of me can't wait to start working on Skywatch, though the rest of me is going, "Hold it, girl, you're not finished with The Novel yet!" I think once I get draft III nailed down, I'll be ready to send it to someone else to look over, and while I'm waiting for them to work on it, I'll hit Skywatch hard.
In conclusion: Steampunk is the wave (or at least a wave) of the future. Hop onboard the airship, our captain's not too crazy and the wind is fair!