Numb: A chat with the artist Niina Eveliina Salmelin
Seeking for something different, far from the mainstream comics industry ?
Just take a look at Numb, an eye catching webcomic by Niina Eveliina Salmelin.
“The boundaries between life and death are shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one begins, and where the other ends?’?–Edgar Allan Poe.
Hello Niina !
– Where do you come from ??
Finland
– How old are you ?
24
– Influences ??
Stories such as Bone, Rose of Versailles, Battle Angel Alita, Sandman, Elf Quest, Beautiful Darkness, Berserk alongside with various works from Rumiko Takashi, Chris Claremont, Junji Ito and Joe Kelly. I also buy tons of art books from various artists for learning and eye candy. My current love is the great H.R. Giger. Alongside comics, movies have at least as much influence in my style. Especially old school horror movies like Dario Argentos films and classic body horror movies from David Cronenberg.
– Art school or not ??
University of Lapland. My major is Art Education.
– Favorite digital art software ??
Clip Studio Paint, Photoshop and TVpaint.
– Your working method ??
It starts from the characters. What emotions are they going through in the scene and what’s the best expression, pose, movement and color scheme to support that. After that it’s just flow. I know what kind of visual punch I want, but I tend to play around it and try out different things and see what sticks. It’s all about serving the story the best possible way, but still keeping an open mind with it and learn new things with every page.
– What your webcomic is about, in a symbolic way, the hidden sense ??
For me, Numb is about friendship. I’m not gonna give anything more, since I want the story to speak for itself.
– Tell us more about your main character, the hero !?
Levi is not a guy I’d describe as a hero. However, despise his regular guy -looks, Levi has a special power to see supernatural things people around him seem to miss. Let it be ghosts or hidden worlds. He’s a big but meek kind of guy who may seem harmless, but is having a few skeletons deep in his closet.
– How do you see your future ??
Comics, lots of comics. After graduation, I’ll look work from the art field. A small dream would be to increase Numb’s update schedule from two to three pages a week.
– Your next goal ??
Build enough buffer to make three pages a week possible update schedule for Numb.
– Advices for beginners ??
Figure out the start, the middle and the end of your story. Now, these are not something you have to follow religiously, but it’s good to keep it clear what kind of story you are telling. Webcomics are a long marathon, so losing the sight of your goal is easier than you’d think One thing I did with Numb to help me keep sense of the workload was storyboarding the entire first arc of the story. This helped me to put down a pile of small goals that eventually combined to one, big goal.
– Your technical secret trick ??
Not much of a secret trick, but I use A3 paper. Making art this way, I don’t feel as claustrophobic and have more space to pull off the art I want to. It might also be worth pointing out, that doing things traditionally helped a big deal.
Instead of having a change to polish my art for eternity, I have a pressure to get it right with the first try. This makes things faster and easier for me.
– Your social links and website ??
twitter.com/NSalmelin
instagram.com/artofniinaeveliina
Homesite: niinaeveliina.com/numb
Webtoons: webtoons.com/numb
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Thanks to Niina for answering our questions !