Ditto Panko, but I'd add the trick answer that research tends to take a lifetime.  
Most of what I build is houses and furnishings, and I started examining and
disassembling such things, and drawing them on paper, around age 3.  
So when I model a stove or a ranch house, I don't need to do much 'live' 
research because I have the proportions, measurements, and inner workings 
solidly in mind.  When I try to model something I've never actually handled or 
repaired, no amount of book or Google research will make it come out right.

The part that takes the longest (or at least feels like the longest) is working 
around the limitations of 3D meshes.   Determining which pieces need to be 
separate body parts, which need to be groups, and which should be 
material zones, can take an unbelievable amount of cut-and-try.  
Poser will often refuse to 'understand' a shape that looks just fine in 
the original modeler.

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