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IA: What about other digital artists? Who do you like?

KS: Digital ones…hmm, that's a tough one. Well, I have to say that there's so many of them that constantly feed my artistic dream pool that it's hard to keep track of who I like more. It depends also on my mood and the season. I probably have over 25 favorites by now!

IA: Can you describe for us your creative process?

KS: Do now, think later. That is the approach I take when doing speeds and pencil drawings. My other approach is to try to convert the main idea into a solid scene. That's the starting point of many of my personal works. But mostly, I focus on the event and the character(s), what they do and for what and how – what they might think. I feel that this way the viewer gets a natural connection with the image and its purpose. After this, the painting starts to come together and the work itself may go through compositional and color changes, or even more drastic ones. Lately I've learned to keep the original thought close as I paint so I won't get sidetracked in the process. I mainly Adobe Photoshop CS2 and Corel Painter as tools, but sometime combines them with traditional medium and photographs

IA: Which of your illustrations have you spent the most of time? Why?

KS: If I think way back I believe that might be the piece entitled, “A Good Dream.” I spent over 2 ^1/2 months working on it. I was still studying at the time and I did it as a part of my final graduation series. Even still, it is a piece that reveals a lot about what I want to represent thorough my works.

IA: If we look at your work as a whole we can see you put a lot of attention on colors and you have your own style/palette to express feelings. Can you tell us more about this?

KS: I'm an emotional person. It shows in my daily life and in all that I do, especially since I'm in an occupation where I have to stay in touch with my feelings at all times and be honest about what I can and can't do. Sometime's I'm envious to people who can disconnect themselves during working hours and then relax when they come home, as an active artist I don't know how to do that. Through many of my more emotional works I'm also showing my own emotions, even if the actual expression in minimal. I get moved by the things that are seemingly emotionless, but for me they're not. Maybe that's why the Japanese and Korean cultures are so attractive to me. And you can see plenty of Asian features in my style and in my work.

IA: Is there a religious aspect at all in your art?

KS: I'm going through some changes and I find many aspects of religion interesting and I’ve been illustrating some of these aspects. Maybe religion has become more evident in some cases because of my writing, which in a big way involves gods and their effect on the world of my story.I'm not saying that I'm a believer, but I'm a researcher. Keeping an open mind opens a lot of inspiring thoughts, which can produce wonderful things both spiritually and artistically.

IA: Do you think you’re at all influenced by Finland and its myths?

KS: I haven't thought of it like that before, but yes. Finland has a lot of myths and mystic folklore. Kalevala is a colossal example of old fantasy and storytelling, it's also known as the Finnish national epos. So in someone way it's my duty as a good citizen to continue studying spiritual things even further! But on the other hand, I think the study religion from a personal point of view is a growth process. Back in my teenage years I was actually a sworn atheist and resented all that complied with religion, especially Christianity. So now I think I’m kind of walking a full circle as most things don't last forever, certainly not opinions and angry immature feelings.