Name: Essi Nopanen
Alias: Shinanai, Shina, Perynne
Location: Tampere, Finland
Where am I now: freelance illustrator working from Tampere. I run manga-workshops around Finland in libraries and schools, and attend any art-related convention I can manage to get to.
Contact: I can be contacted at 
I graduated from Tampere University of Applied Sciences (Finland) December 2008 with a degree in graphic design. Hopefully that will become useful in the future.
If I was a D&D character, I’d be the druid/ranger of the party. Nature and animals are very dear to me, and I love shooting things with a bow and arrow. Incidentally, most of the characters I’ve played in roleplay campaigns have some connections to nature…
Some favourite things in life:
Movie: horror, fantasy and comedy movies (ex. Stardust, Oldboy, I’m a Cyborg but That’s Ok, House on Haunted Hill, Pontypool, Nodame Cantabile)
TV-series: Xena the Warrior Princess (I love it because it’s so cheesy – also, nostalgia), Twin Peaks, Firefly, Doctor Who, live-action Nodame Cantabile, k-drama Coffee Prince
Book: fantasy and alternate reality; humor (ex. authors Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, Susanna Clarke; horror/fantasy anthologies)
Music: soundtracks with pompous instrumentals and lots of people singing.
Games: Silent Hill-series, Guild Wars, Devil May Cry-series, Metal Gear Solid, Left 4 Dead
Comics: Berserk, Blade of the Immortal, Junji Ito’s works, Mushishi, Gunmm, Sin City, Sandman
Food: sushi and chicken salad
Overall, I have a love for things of horror, epic proportions and eyecandy. I also very much like a strange sense of humor, the stranger the better. I love roleplaying in any form, whether it be online, IRC, tabletop, etc.