Alex Chepelev, the illustrator

Hi everyone!
My name is Alex Chepelev and I am an illustrator. Mike and I have been working since 2015 year and from this time we made a lot of books, which you can find on this site. These books includes adventure in two parts about cheerful and restless Nana Troll and her grandson Henry, crazy The Saxon's Socks and, of course, series of personalised books about Skinny Monkey and little girl or boy. Here is some facts about me.

I raised in a small industrial town in East Ukraine called Alchevsk. I had quite a happy childhood, walking around the yard. Most of all I loved watching cartoons, reading books (my favorite is Karlsson-on-the-Roof) and blowing up firecrackers.

I have been drawing since I was two. Parents often gave me watercolours and I drew enthusiastically on the balcony. Most of all, as a child I loved to draw all kinds of monsters and strange creatures, for example, a talking toaster.

      

My favorite childhood cartoons were "AAAAH !!! Real Monsters" (love Krumm!), "Rugrats" and "Hey Arnold!". In other words, these are the production of the Klasky Csupo studio from Nickelodeon. The problem was that TV in my hometown didn't show Nickelodeon and I could only watch these cartoons on another channel with my grandmother in the village. These cartoons were so valuable that I wrote down everything I saw in a notebook to then recreate them in my imagination. I even created a whole monster comic inspired by AAAAH !!! Real Monsters.

In childhood when I came to my grandparents, I sat near the village house and dug a hole. I was hoping to dig a pool for the whole family to swim in. I called it "swamp".

My favourite toy was a yellow stuffed rabbit.

What I love

My favourite musician is David Bowie.

Comedians - Charlie Chaplin, Pee-wee Herman and Monty Python. 

I love movies of Silent Era and short animations of 20s with Mickey Mouse by Ub Iwerks.

Chocolate with nuts.

Weird stuffed toys.

Rats, rabbits and pigs.