Denis Angelov

Children's book illustrator, who sometimes writes. Based in Sofia, Bulgaria. Represented by Susan Hawk at Upstart Crow Literary

[denisillustrates]

Brussels

[denisillustrates]

A bunch of bug buddies

[denisillustrates]

A group of hiking buddies. ⛰️

[denisillustrates]

Lying under cloudy skies. ☁️

[denisillustrates]

I’ve been spending a lot of time working in my sketchbook lately. This little guy is from a spread dedicated to exploring shapes and exaggeration. 

[denisillustrates]

Three storm chasers, chasing storms in the countryside. 

[denisillustrates]

Continuing with my watercolour journey - here’s an illustration of two harpy kids.

[denisillustrates]

 I’ve been trying to get myself to use watercolours more often and also ink with a Chinese calligraphy brush, so here are a few vignettes from the past week. 

[denisillustrates]

Every now and again your ideas just give up on you.

[denisillustrates]

A self-portrait.

[denisillustrates]

The Dalmatian whose spots fell off.

[denisillustrates]

Happy Monday! Don’t read too much news, if it makes you feel sad about the world we live in. 

[denisillustrates]

What flu season actually feels like.

[denisillustrates]

I like my morning coffee tall, thank you. :)

[denisillustrates]

Sometimes being a perfectionist can only hold you back from creating beautiful work. I've recently realized that not every line needs to be clear and not every shape needs to be smooth.

[denisillustrates]

Saw this little kid waving her lollipop through the backseat window of a car on my way home from work the other day. Also, here are some process shots of this illustration.

I usually start off by a quick (no more than 1 minute) doodle in my trusty sketchbook for ideas. Next I tend to do a more detailed sketch of the piece (this can take several tries to get right and I normally do 3 to 5 sketches). Afterwards, I do a cleaned up sketch of the final composition and start inking while keeping in mind where I want to add textures and other drawn details. Next up are the textures and additional doodles. Most of the time I recycle a lot of the older ones I've done. And finally, everything needs to be scanned, cleaned up and coloured in Photoshop.

[denisillustrates]

I recently read an article about how millenials love to move more than previous generations and often chase the rush of starting over. There is a study that shows how over 45% of millenials who have recently moved don’t plan on staying at their new place for a longer period of time. Furthermore, one of the main reasons for a young adult to move to a new city is how “instagrammable” it is and whether or not they have seen gorgeous images of it on social media. 

As someone who thoroughly enjoys their comfort zone I find that fascinating, so here’s an illustration based on this article.