Gninrom Art Feature

AG: What is your name?

Gn: My name is Matti Virtanen. Haha! I know it sounds weird to English ears, almost all the Finnish names does. Friends call me Masa or Max. In art I use Hc or Gnin/Gninrom.

AG: Where are you from?

Gn: I'm from Finland. The cold and expensive place behind god's back where the president looks like female version of Conan O'Brien lol!

AG: How long have you been drawing?

Gn: Since I was a kid! Don't we all Haha! I remember when I made my first smut pics and my mom found those... Embarassing.

AG: Is Art a chosen career choice or a hobby?

Gn: I would love it to become as a career but for now it's still a hobby in which I use very much of time =P

AG: Do you possess any formal training i.e. college, workshops, through work experience etc?

Gn: No I acturally dont. Everything I know I've learned myself. I remember how hard I tried when I made my first digital piece. After that I felt horrible. Of course it looked like a total mess. I wanted so hard to become one of the good artists and share my stuff to everyone. Then I just bit my teeth together and made a piece after another. Nowadays I'm actually starting to be pleased what I see, but of course there's lot to learn =).


AG: Which media do you most enjoy? Least enjoy?

Gn: I've always loved pencils cos you can take them anywhere with yo u=).
And I do enjoy of sketching very much. Drawing a super dirty gay smut pic while sitting in a bus when there's an old lady next to you is actually quite fun XD.
I apologize from all the shocked old ladies. Hahaha!

There's actually not much I don't like, except cleaning linearts and tight deadlines for commissions and such. I hate it when people fuss =P

AG: What is your creative process? Do you have one?

Gn: First I have to know what I wanna draw and how I want it to look, then I choose the weapons =). Usually I grab my pens and start making pre-sketches and then continue it digitally. Sometimes I just open a new canvas in CS4 and start to ink right away. It often takes a lot of cleaning which I hate the most.

AG: What is your main source of inspiration?

Gn: Oh wow! There's so many! Hahaha! Morning cartoons! Comics, Anime series lol
Mostly toons at the moment. It changes much, it depends which mood I'm on but mostly all these things inspire me very much, especially other artists fine work that makes me want to become better =)

AG: Do you have any favourite artists?

Gn: Yeah I have, MANY haha!! First the Historical. I love Michelangelo's art! Even women were muscular as hell! Though his males could have had bigger dongs Hahaha!!

And my most favourite modern artists are : Alex Ross, Patrick Fillion, Jacob Mott, Tom Of Finland and many many more! This list would just go on...


AG: Are you currently working on any projects?

Gn: Yes I am! I have huge pile of commissions and 2 comics under work.
One of those comics is a dirty doujin of Japanese Anime series Naruto.
And the other one is a secret!

AG: Has your work ever been published?

Gn: No not yet. But I actually have a big project i'm working on!
I'm so excited about it but I gotta keep my mouth shut! Sorry!
I'll make a huge deal of it when it's the right time, I promise=)

Oh! and I gotta thank Patrick for featuring my art on his Boytoons Mag.

AG: Any advice you would like to offer to our aspiring artists out there?

Gn: Yeah I do! As all the others have said also I'm gonna say it too! Don't ever give up!! You can always improve your stuff so don't feel bad if you didn't quite make it this time! It takes a lil time and practice to get better and I know it feels frustrating sometimes but you'll get there if you try as hard as you can =) And remember to NOT burn yourself out!

AG: Cake or Pie?

Gn: HAAAAAAHA!! Dirty dirrrtty hahaha! Or is it just me?
Well, I gotta go for the cake!! Cos we have these Karjalanpiirakat in Finland and they really look like... Okay, I'm not gonna go there XD

AG: Any other comments?

Gn: Yes! Thank you very much


Thanks Gnin!

You can see more of Gninrom's work on his blog and his Y!Gallery.

Images©Gninrom
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