Who am I?

It can be quite awkward writing about myself, but let’s start from somewhere.

My name is Aleksandar Ignatov. I was born on April 9^th, 1991 in Varna, Bulgaria.

I have lived there my whole life, up until a couple of weeks ago when I moved to Leicester to study something I have great interest in: Game art.

When I had the idea to study something after school, I wasn’t sure at first what I’d like to study. I didn’t know where to study, or what to focus on. At first my plan was to stay in Bulgaria and study animation in Sofia, the capital, but after digging into information about it, and talking with friends that had studied there, I found that they didn’t have what I was searching for. So I started looking somewhere else, in places far from my own home city. I started looking at universities in different countries, and the most interesting seemed the ones in Britain. Sooner than I’d expected, I found myself in De Montfort University, Leicester, studying computer game design.

The idea for studying something involving games came from my life-long interest in video games. My interest in video games was born around 11-12 years ago, when I was on vacation with my parents in a hotel in the mountains. I loved going out to play in the forest with friends, but when it rained there was pretty much nothing to do. Looking around the station, I found the basement to be filled with arcade games. At first I didn’t know what they were, but ten minutes later I was the master of them all. I don’t remember which game I played first, but the one I enjoyed the most was Contra. One of my friends had a Nintendo, and I can’t even say how much we played or fought over it. At some point, we even managed to break the television …I don’t remember what had caused it, but someone’s head and several controllers were involved.

My biggest interest of all is drawing. I always knew I wanted to do something with my life that involved art, ever since I was a child. After 7^th grade, I enrolled at the National school of art, Dobri Hristov, in Varna. I had a great interest in sculpting. The fact that you can make something out of nothing, and feel it in your hands as it transforms into something beautiful is simply remarkable. So I specialized with sculpture in my school, and sooner than I’d expected, I’d graduated and moved on.

At the time I got here, it was, and still is quite hard getting used to all of the new things around me, especially being so far away from my home and my friends. But, I know I’m doing this for something good, which will eventually pay off for me, although it will take a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to get there.

The fact that I can draw really helped me in choosing what I wanted to study. The main goal in my life is to become a concept artist, which is likely the hardest position to achieve in this industry, but I know that I am capable of reaching that height. My goals are high in the clouds and difficult to achieve, but who said I can’t make a ladder that will reach them?