Hello, my name is Valeriya Topp. I am a classically trained academic artist and B.A. designer, and I work freelance as an illustrator and character designer. Currently, I am in training to become a tattoo artist and will be accepting my first appointments in 2025.
The main focus of my work is illustration and character design of people, animals, and creatures—preferably, but not exclusively, in the realms of fantasy and folklore.
As an illustrator, I primarily work in a realistic style, sometimes with light stylization, as well as in a comic art style. As a tattoo artist, I have developed a unique style that combines linework and sketch with comic influences. With over 15 years of experience in painting and drawing, I continually evolve as an artist.
Tattoo Artist (Appointments starting April 2025)
09/2024 – Present
Freelance as Illustrator, Character Designer & Concept Artist
03/2023- present
Design working student
2020-2022 | The field of illustration, graphic and media design at Arbeiter-Samariter-Bund e.V. Münsterland RV
Commission Artist
2013- 2016
After attending a children’s art school for four years and my general school leaving, I completed a classical training as an art painter and art teacher at an art college.
Here I immersed myself in the world of academic drawing and art painting with a focus on still lifes, portraits, nude drawings, outdoor landscape painting and animal depictions. My training included various rules of the art of composition, light and shadow conditions, black and white sketching, color representation as well as the anatomy of humans and animals. I learned the use of oil paints, watercolors, gouache, ink, charcoal, pencil and other graphic materials.
Later I successfully completed my bachelor‘s degree at the Münster School of Design with a focus on 2D animation and 3D character design. Here I expanded my skills in various graphic processes such as illustration, frame-by-frame animation, key-frame animation, 3D design and character design, including partial 3D animation.
During my studies I gained extensive knowledge in programs such as InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, After Effects, Premiere Pro, Cinema4D, Blender, Substance Painter and ZBrush.
The “Human Made Art” logo which I created means that I don’t use AI tools for creative processes such as searching for ideas, sketching, rendering or the like. Instead, I let my many years of experience and creativity flow into my works. Above all, I love all the steps required to create a work of art, and I will never need AI to do that.
The AI tools were created in an unethical way by stealing works from artists and making them freely and commercially available to the world, with the aim of making a profit for the company that created them. These AIs would be nothing without the work of the artists, who were not asked for permission to “copy” their works, were not mentioned in the generators, and were never compensated for the use of their works. Dear companies like Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, DALL-E, especially Stable Diffusion of Stability AI and others, have decided that it is okay to go through the corpses to success and not only steal something from the artists, but also take away their future.
