About me
Hello, everyone!
My name is Vladimir Nikolov, although you probably already figured that out, because the first thing you saw visiting this site were the big letters on site's banner. Despite the sound of my name, I'm not a Russian, but Bulgarian - felt like this was needed to be pointed out, because through the years, I've been taken for a Russian on various forums and websites I visited. Anyway, sloppy humour aside, I'm paleontographer (or simply said - paleoartist), dinosaur enthusiast and pride holder of B.Sc. degree in Geology.
My interest in paleontology and drawing/painting has its roots deep in my childhood. I basically started to draw since that moment I was able to hold a pencil. A couple of years later I became fascinated by the dinosaurs, and opened my eyes to the astonishing prehistoric world. I was one of those kids, who were infected by disease called "Jurassic Park", but never really found a cure for this sickness. On the contrary - it became worse with the time passing. When I saw for the first time artworks of famous paleontographers, like Douglas Henderson, John Sibbick, Greg Paul and Elly Kish, I realized that art and science can be used together to bring the ancient life back to life. This was the time when I started to draw dinosaurs. Of course my early attempts were really, really poorly drawn, and mostly copies of the artworks of other artists, but this was the way to learn.
Strangely, I've always wanted a career in paleontology and not art, although the latter is somewhat easier to accomplish (yet, really hard to achieve in comparison with other professions). Unfortunately, I couldn't study paleontology in any form in high school, so I had to wait until I get in the university. Meanwhile, I had to pick up a high school, so I went to art school - it was the only logical choice seeing that I couldn't spend a day without drawing. For 6 years I've developed my art skills under the guidance of various artists - my teachers. Sadly they didn't give to me knowledge on how to make good paleontography or even scientific illustrations, but what they taught me about art in general served well.
After the high school, I was finally free to pursue my interests in paleontology. It should be noted that there are two ways to become a paleontologist, to get B.Sc. degree in Biology or in Geology. I went with Geology and graduated in September 2012. Currently I'm M.Sc. student in "Geology and Paleontology" programme at the Sofia University, Bulgaria.
Having some professional training in art and independently acquired scientific background in geology, helps me to better understand how science and paleontography actually work. This have greatly improved the quality of my artworks in the last few years, and I'm sure this trend will continue in future.
As an artist, I prefer traditional art, though I do appreciate good digital art and the artists who produced it. In my opinion the real challenge to any artist, is to master the different types of traditional media, because some of the software used for the production of digital art allows the artists to achieve good results, even if they are not so good in traditional art. Some of my favorite paleontographers are actually digital artists but all of them have proved their skills in traditional art.
I work mostly with pencils (combination of 2B and 5B pencils do all the magic), ink and watercolours. The outcome of using these art tools can be seen in the "Galleries" section of this site.
I hope you had good time browsing through this site and viewing my paleontographic artworks. Thank you for visiting!