I wanted to share a little behind-the-scenes detail about Page 1 of my comic ELEMENTALS especially the part with the flooded town.
The colorful houses you see in that scene were inspired by the beautiful, vibrant buildings in Venice, Italy. I looked at lots of photo references of Venice’s streets and canals, and I loved how the houses had strong, rich colors like yellow, red, orange, blue, and green. It felt perfect for the tone of the water scene.
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| Colorful houses along a canal in Burano near Venice, Italy |
I wanted the town to feel real, but also slightly dreamlike and using these colors helped me create that feeling.
But just to clarify:
This scene is not set in Venice. It’s a different city within the world of Elementals. I only used Venice as a visual reference to bring more life and contrast to the background.
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| (Atlas Obscura, n.d.) |
I chose Venice because it was the first place that came to mind when I looked at this part of the page. It also stands out more than the other types of waterside buildings since it’s more colorful than the rest.
References:
Barrow, J. (2025). Colorful houses along a canal in Burano near Venice, Italy. [online] 123RF. Available at: https://tr.123rf.com/photo_17509369_colorful-houses-along-a-canal-in-burano-near-venice-italy.html [Accessed 23 May 2025].
Atlas Obscura. (n.d.). The Mad Colored Houses of Burano. [online] Available at: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-mad-colored-houses-of-burano-venice-italy.
Why did you choose to look at Venice? Perhaps you could make this clearer in the post, as to why you used this as a point of reference rather than anywhere else. The text is quite minimal, would like to hear more of your thoughts and reflection on this process.
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