The Flowing Clue: La Source Unveiled – page 7, panel 3

“The Flowing Clue: La Source Unveiled” page 7, panel 3

This is the ink of the third panel of page 7 of my manga book on fluids. While researching the story, I found some interesting info on how detectives actually measure objects in photos, where no obvious reference length is shown. The size of a human iris, apparently, is a fairly constant reference. Here, one of the main characters, Ariadne, explains this.

The Flowing Clue: La Source Unveiled – page 7, panels 1,2

“The Flowing Clue: La Source Unveiled” page 7, panels 1, 2

This is the ink of the first two panels of page 7 of my fluids comic book. I needed to establish a system for measuring the reference lengths in the painting, so I had to do some research about how this could be done. The model of “La Source” is actually a known person, so her anatomy is an obvious reference. Nothing is known about her height or other measurements, though, as Ariadne and Athena discuss in these panels.

The Flowing Clue: La Source Unveiled – page 6, panels 2 – 5

“The Flowing Clue: La Source Unveiled” page 6, panels 2 – 5.

Here are the inks of the rest of the 6th page of my fluids comic book. This is how I decided to show the scientific content. I used my own presentation style from the COVID times, when I taught fluid mechanics online by writing on the screen, overlaying formulae and schematics with images.

The Flowing Clue: La Source Unveiled – page 5, panels 3 – 5

“The Flowing Clue: La Source Unveiled” page 5, panels 3 – 5

Here is the second half of page 5 of my fluids manga. Looking back at these inks, which I made a few weeks ago, I think that the characters became a bit too simplified at this point. There are good reasons for it from the comic book readability standpoint, but I probably enjoy drawing slightly more detailed illustrations. When I come back to these panels for colouring, I might play with rendering a bit more than I originally planned.

The Flowing Clue: La Source Unveiled – page 5, panels 1, 2

“The Flowing Clue: La Source Unveiled” page 5, panels 1, 2

Here are the inks of the first half of page 5 of my comic book. A key point that I learned from Victoria Ying is that the text takes priority in a comic book, and the images have to fit around it. I am sure that without this advice, I would have under-estimated how much space the speech bubbles take, even with a relatively small font size.

The Flowing Clue: La Source Unveiled – page 4, panels 1, 2

“The Flowing Clue: La Source Unveiled” page 4, panels 1, 2

These are the inks of the first two panels on the fourth page of my comic book. At the scripting stage, I had most fun around this point in the storyline. By this time, I already had a pretty good idea of what the characters would look like and how they would talk, but I didn’t yet get into the thick of the fluids and the math, which are the proverbial vegetables hidden in the smoothie of a detective story. So stay tuned for more updates – hopefully they will be somewhat educational, as well as entertaining.