Hello, my name is Denis Voronin, I'm 27 years old , I have a beautiful wife and two cool children, a son and a daughter. I was born and live in Russia and I think in the future and I will stay in Russia.I started working with Fotolia at the beginning of my stock "career" (around 2009) and they were one of the major microstock agencies with whom I my illustrations did not just hang around and brought in some income.
The style of my illustrations I usually say briefly is that I draw cartoony. And while most people lose interest because they think that it is not serious (although maybe true my illustrations are for children, but there are some illustrations with a more or less adult story, as they are more serious.
I love the work of such authors as Jamie Hewlett and Skottie Young and i also am inspired by the cartoons I watch with my kids: "Adventure Time" and "The Amazing World of Gumball".
I'm not sure that my illustrations are so popular because I don't draw is what is considered typically popular in the microstock industry, but if they are liked by some people, it may be because of the amount of humour, sarcasm or positivity. Well, maybe because they are cute. I hope they mostly give people joy and smile.
From the very beginning of my stock career my style has changed, but maybe not everyone will notice it. When opening some old illustration I am sometimes appalled by how clumsy are some of the elements. But I think this will be the case constantly, I think this is the case with all artists, and it is natural.
I think the culture of my country has not affected me in terms of the illustrations instead I was somehow more influenced by the culture of Asian countries (China, Japan). I like everything related to martial arts, and so often I draw something on this topic (monks, ninjas, samurais, etc).
I usually draw with the aim to create something cool and fun, and very easy to enjoy the process! But lately, I want to make some depicting social issues, for example, 'Do not pollute the world'.
To create a fantastic job, you have to be a crazy fanatic, you need to burn and create do every time as good as the last. It does not matter whether you have enough technical knowledge or ability to do so: just use your fingers and draw. It would be sad however if after all the crazy papers, this work will be mediocre to others but at least they'll eventually be satisfied with the work done.
Sometimes ideas come to mind, quite suddenly, sometimes walking down the street and in my head they are so many new ideas coming. Main issue is to write them down, or keep them in my head without losing. Sometimes even in a dream ideas come from new illustrations, but here too, need to be especially careful not to wake up having lost the remnants of a dream, I have a few times lost so many great ideas!
I have accumulated a rather big list of what I want to paint, and when I finally decide to choose what exactly it will be, is not easy.
My customers are probably anyone, although I'd say older people generally will not get involved in my pictures as they are "not too serious". People buy to print on t-shirts as they're quire young and also for blogs. They often get used for games too, once a client wrote to me: "here's a look at a game I did with your character" (nice)!
Uploading each new illustration, I dream it will sell and it will be sold as never before! In my portfolio I was surprised by the ninja did not sell as well as I thought people were so fond of ninjas (some ninja mania)
They still buy the old, old illustration hippie, I do not love her, but customers love,so that everyone loves hippies (Peace!). It doesn't really hurt if something doesn't sell so well. I upload, if sold, then good, if not sold, what to do, time will come and all will be sold.
Do not me judge on global trends in stock industry as I said, I am not a top author and can not give advice on this topic.But thankfully now there are appearing different infographics which states what is popular and will be popular, providing a lot of statistics, and based on this it is easy to make a choice as to what I will draw for successful selling microstock images.
I don't pay much attention to popular trends/themes however because selling on microstock is not my main income, (my main job is to make illustrations, graphics and animations for mobile games) so for the stock market I paint what I want and get pleasure from it, and sometimes even a a bit of money!
My favourite illustrations from my portfolio are difficult to identify because they gradually cease to give me much enjoyment, and only my new work bring satisfaction and a little confidence in what I still can draw... But not for long!
However, just running my eyes over my portfolio, I don't hate all my old hate work, I even like very many, so that is great because that's much better than I thought! Super!
Thank you so much to Denis for his time! To check out more of his awesome work find him on Facebook and of course all his images on his Fotolia portfolio.
