What, another interview? So soon? Hey, I lucked out, I got to read another great comic, so here’s a very…

Sober

interview with Niina Salemin, author of Numb. Ready? Here comes!

Sekhmet: “Hello, Niina! Tell us something about yourself.”

Niina: Moi! I’m Niina Eveliina, current art education student and aspiring for professional illustrator & comic book career. My main project for now is mystery webcomic Numb.

Sekhmet: “Cool! Next question: name three boring qualities and three awesome defects of yours.”

Niina: Okey,
Boring
1. I have bad habit in falling easily into hermit -lifestyle.
2. Walker of long walks.
3. Nothing agains tomatoes.
Awesome
1. Sometimes I neglect my other responsibilities for art. Good for art’s sake, bad for other stuff (I eventually get around to do them without missing deadline, but scheduling my life would be helpful..)
2. I get excited over stuff way too easily.
3. I get intense mood swings and get all-time changing ideas of what to do next.

Sekhmet: “How did you come up with the idea/s for Numb?”

Niina: Numb came from pretty personal place. It’s one of those stories that has stuck with me from my early teens. You can only imagine how much it has changed under those years!

Many of the characters base their roots in the people I have known, strangers, friends, family and it’s themes of looking for connection and growing apart have been close to me. There are many things I’d LOVE to talk about more, but before that I want the story to get a bit further 🙂

The idea to do this comic with watercolors came from the fact that I rarely used any color on my work and was terrified of coloring. I figured that forcing myself to use them for a comic I want to look good will get me out of my comfort zone and improve my skills a lot. So far it has worked pretty swell and I couldn’t even imagine Numb anymore without this technique. In this case, art truly acts as one of the characters.

Sekhmet: “Any upcoming project?”

Niina: Plenty! My absolute dream -endgame is to get by with doing my own stories and for that you gotta have stories.

I have various comic ideas that are ready to start after Numb with different length and genre. At the moment I have a feeling I’ll do another mystery in sci-fi setting with more action next.

However, Numb is going to be long comic that’s going to take me few years still, so I have time to change my mind.

Sekhmet: “What would you say to a young author struggling to put two decent pages together other than “Work hard!” ?”

Niina: For the love of god stop using black for shading skin tone what is wrong with you? Other than that, I’m still struggling 😀

Sekhmet: “Any parting words?”

Niina: Thank you for the review & interview for Numb! I’ll be looking forward on what other comics I’ll find through your efforts 🙂

How can you not subscribe to Numb, after this lovely interview? Do it 🙂