Orpheelin it’s the nickname of Anne. A French girl who caugh us whit her fantastic art exposed in DA.

Her comic Northern is about Cendre (Ash), a half-elf who wants to save her people from the disease and Faust, a damn man who’s looking for his humanity. Orpheelin speak about them.

KZ-What about your nick name?.

I took this name in 2003. I was in a drawers team, making doujinshis about Saint Seiya. We split up by choice and stopped to make our comic book. I needed to take my independance as an artist, that's why I've thought about having a nickname. Orpheelin is a play-of-words with the greek mythological character Orphee and orphelin which means orphans in French. I like this nickname, even a lot of people can't pronounce it in the right way ! I often say "call me Orphee', that's okay ! '" .

KZ- When you have decided to draw?

I didn't properly decided to draw. I have always drawn in my childhood. It has always been a way to express myself and my feelings better than words. I've been seduced by japanese animation at TV in the 80'-90's and that's why I orientated my preferences for drawing in a manga style. The only thing I've really decided is to follow a professional career in illustration and animation. 

KZ-Northern is your known work; What’s more easy, to scrip or to draw?

Definitely, to draw! My brain is such a mess to built stories, I'm never satisfied with my storylines. I try to work on a strong layout and I built the general background of my story but the detail is a moving material, constantly changing and I simply can't stop myself to say: "that's okay, this is a good idea, keep it until the end of the book". No actions in the chapters are really defined. It can change according my feelings or state of mind, when it's time to draw it.



 KZ- I love Driall. What’s your favorite character?

 Faust. It sounds like cliché as he's my main character in Northern, but I really like this guy. Probably because I feel close to him. I know him better than my other characters and I like his constant anger against his life. He's quite human with a lot of failings. Driall has a big potential, but I'm still searching to define his behavior and life shapes. His design is really cool but I would like to catch him in body and soul !!

 KZ- Your draws remember manga designs. Do you like it? What’s your favorite Japanese author?

 As I've said previously, I can't deny I've been influenced by Japanese designs. I love many authors, but the one who always amaze me is Ayami Kojima.(designer of Castelvania) Her style is so fluent and strong. My first loves were Leiji Matsumoto(captain Harlock), Shingo Araki (Saint Seiya, Versailles no Bara), Takehiko Inoue (Vagabond), Kazushi Hagiwara (Bastard!) and Masakazu Katsura (I"s, Zetman).

 KZ- What’s the more difficult to draw?

 Making composition with backgrounds, including characters in the right scale into them. It's really technical. The most difficult is high angle shots and low angle shots. When you have to draw horses and riders in those angles-and I do have a lot - your mind gonna turn mad.

KZ- The artbook of Northern will come at the Japan Expo. Who the fanart your surprised and why?

The most surprising fanart I've received was from Zephyrhant, an artist on DA I admire a lot. He did a wonderful piece of art with Faust and Cendre, my main characters and I didn't expected such a great surprise. Imagine you receive a gift from someone you consider as a god of art, you can guess my feeling. I've also been really happy when one of my friends, Alice Picard, making comics for a famous French publishing house, included Faust as a guest in her graphic novel!! He appears on two pages as a thief !! You know, in general all fanarts give me happiness and satisfaction. Fanart means your story and characters inspire people all around the world, touch them in a deep way.



KZ- What’s the country do you want to travel? Someone in winter time, like your comic?

Sure! I would love to come back to Scandinavia. I went once to Oslo, but I would like to go on the North-West in Norway to discover the fjords and to see aurora borealis one time in my life !! I like snow, I like travelling. Travels are such inspiration!



KZ- What or who inspired you? What do you need to make a history?

A concept , a story or a character can be inspired by many things. It could be in my case by my personal life experiment, it could be a projection or adaptation of someone in real life you find fun or particular. It could be a meeting with another culture by travelling, it could be by a movie or a song. A new story is often motivated by a desire of escape, a research of something different from your real life, or something you can't find in the current art-production. I've got a huge need to dream myself. When I search for inspiration, I often make a turn on deviantart, artblogs, and others tumblr all around the internet. I take a book in my artbook collection and stareat the art for a long time. Looking at beautiful and inspiring artwork make me want to draw and create spontaneously. 
KZ- At the last, if I want to work like you, what would you advise me?


Work a lot !! Haha ! I would tell you at first to change your goal. If you want to make art, don't focus on another artist's work and technical. If you want to improve, you need to be open to many different type of art. It will make the wealth of your own production and will make your art singular and interesting. No surprise about telling drawing is a hard work, training, practice are essential. You need to burn of passion for drawing if you want to improve fast. Drawing is not like a school option you can take and learn like geography, 2 hours by week, in my opinion. It's not mathematical or simply logical.

It's a "way to be". If art is a hobby, you won't be as great as someone who "live" its passion for drawing everyday-life. Not because your less gifted than him, but because you don't work as often as he do. Passion makes great artist. Work makes great artists. With passion, work isn't a constraint anymore. To end, I would like to thank you (and your team) for this interview, and to give me the opportunity to speak about my art to other people.