Meghan Gilchrist, a recent SMCC alumni, contributed an eight-page manga short, ‘Dimensions: Luke’ to the SMCC Beacon, and we spoke with them about their process and influences to her style. Interested readers can view their manga at the bottom of this article, and can find other student art in the Beacon’s archives and submit their own by contacting one of our editors via the name box in the upper right part of our site. The Beacon has a long history of supporting student artists, and we encourage you to be a part of that!

Please note that manga reads right-to-left and top-to-bottom.

Liliana Palmer: Could you introduce yourself to the reader, and explain your connection to SMCC?

Meghan Gilchrist: Hi! I’m Meghan, some people know me online as Flaire. I went to SMCC for a year and a half, and currently work in the bookstore at the time of writing this. Currently majoring in Illustration, and transferred to MECA.

LP: What artists influence or inspire your work?

MG: My biggest inspiration would have to be Eiichiro Oda, the mangaka of One Piece, as well as Posuka Demizu, the artist behind The Promised Neverland as well as a lot of beautiful (but gorey) illustrations. The styles and different types of detailing they use is really what gets me.

LP: Could you describe in broad strokes your process for creating this manga?

MG: I start my work by doing a light script, thumbnailing pages full sized and refining as I go. I do line-art and map out my half-tones before getting into crosshatch shading.

LP: What’s your plan, going forward, for exploring the Dimensions story?

MG: I plan on making a few more one shots of non-Dimensions related stories before tackling the larger picture. In the future I want to explore the story and all its characters in a huge set of volumes. Many, many arcs and stories. This was honestly just a practice of an arc I don’t plan on touching on heavily, where Luke discovers a very small piece of his truth.

LP: What other projects are you working on?

MG: I’m currently working on another one shot, as well as a short series of manga parodying the popular sports genre related to butterfly knife tricks. I also am attending holiday pop ups in Portland, and have a shirt on preorder until Feb. 22nd (Scalus fructus on the Rawpaw site).

LP: What advice would you give to SMCC students pursuing the same work you do?

MG: For other students, honestly the best advice I received was just to start working on it. Being ‘good’ is something you need to practice at, and if you wait until you feel confident enough you may be lost in your story ideas. Better to get it down sooner rather than later. Also, I do believe that manga is part of a style of comic. There are so many different types of comics you can do, but I just prefer the right-to-left, black and white format.

LP: Do you have any additional comments you’d like to make on the topic?

MG: Manga is a really tough thing to get into, and I’m doing it because I love it. I’m not really worried about what the outcome is, because I know I’ll be happy doing it.

LP: Where should students go to see more of your work?

MG: Under socials I’m at (Flaires.Art) or (FlairesArt), as well as my website (https://flaire.carrd.co/).