About me
Hello dreamers, my name is Elitsa Ilieva a.k.a. Stellaria, passionate visual designer & composer from Bulgaria, currently located in Spain.
My creative journey started when I was 5 years old. I come from a family with musical background, as my father is an opera singer and my brother a sound engineer. I have a perfect pitch, and following my desire at the time, I started taking piano lessons. Years later I decided to study Italian. Later I changed my direction to the visual arts and started taking drawing lessons. Music wasn’t forgotten. In fact, I started composing music at the age of 9. In 7th grade I stopped taking piano lessons, but created more music pieces and I started singing in a choir. Later I became a student in New Bulgarian University in the program “Graphic design and visual communication” and also had a second major – Italian philology in Sofia University. After 4 years of struggling, I dropped both as I had to start working and sustain myself, that is how my professional journey began.
The Anime and Manga comminity
I started watching anime when I was 4 years old. I didn’t know what it was, but definitely I liked it more than the average cartoons on TV. When I turned 12 I started watching a lot of anime on several Italian TV channels. That’s how my love for Italian language and culture began. Actually my nickname was born, because I was a huge fan of the anime Sailor Moon. Like many others I had a fanfic based on it and the main protagonist was Stellaria – the princess of the stars. The name was invented by me (it has Italian influence of course), but later on I discovered that it is the name of an actual flower.
When I went to study in Sofia, during my university studies (2000-2004), I met a lot of different and interesting people. Being in the center of the anime and manga community I started organizing meetings, which later became events. Then my focus shifted from organizing events like Aniventure, to documenting and later on, organizing cosplay competitions. In 2009 I created a cosplay website dedicated to the Bulgarian cosplayers where I published articles, interviews and photos until 2013. I learned by myself how organizing events went about and it was a part of my life up until 2018.
I created two big Facebook groups, dedicated to the anime fans and the cosplayers. From 2011 I started being part of the team of AniFest – the anime convention in my hometown Varna. I made designs for the social media and promotional materials, created the website, helped with the management of several different aspects of the event and of course organized the cosplay competitions. AniFest is a very big project, it has 2 editions every year – a summer and a winter one. I had a lot of fun, made many friends and I was very passionate about it for many years. The last edition I took part of was in 2019. I still watch anime from time to time and I continue to support the Facebook groups I created.
Making websites
I create websites since 1997. Back then, the internet wasn’t something popular. I remember reading an article about it, in a magazine and being fascinated by the idea of the global network. Several months later my cousin sold me his old computer. Later my other cousin showed me how to make simple websites in Netscape composer and that was my first experience. When I decided to study graphic design, I already had a better computer and started making experiments. Later I used Dreamweaver to create websites. The first version of my cosplay website I built in Joomla and in the end in 2012 I started working with WordPress.
Creating music
My first music memory is of me singing on a bus to my great grandmother. I knew more than 40 songs by the age of 4. My parents have had bought me a small red piano toy, as a result I requested to learn to play the piano for real. They took me to the Musical academy in my hometown. I only remember the image of an enormous hall with a grand piano. The music teacher had told my father that I´m really talented as I have a perfect pitch. The next thing I remember is receiving my first real piano. I wasn´t very patient and that caused me a lot of troubles. I had to repeat and repeat things in order to learn them and that was very frustrating. Some days after playing for hours with my mom at my side, I was starting to cry because I couldn´t make things right. My other problem was that I never understood why I was doing it, my initial enthusiasm was long forgotten and finally after 7th grade I decided to stop taking lessons. That decision opened my eyes. In the first days I didn´t want to look at the piano, but later I realized that I like to just sit and play for my own pleasure. And that was the turning point. My first original piece was born when I was 9, but after that I didn´t create anything until that special moment. Also the way I was doing it was different. I wasn´t trying just to play it without any technical mistakes like before. I was just putting my soul in the music without thinking how to move my fingers. This was something nobody told me before and I had to learn it the hard way. In 8th grade my father proposed that I start singing in a choir, after the initial refusal I went and I liked it a lot. After only 6 months I was sent with the best singers of the choir on a tour in France and Switzerland. I made a lot of friends and enjoyed every minute of it.
In 1999 I moved to Sofia in order to study. I tried singing in another choir for a short period of time, but left the piano in my hometown and for almost 20 years I didn’t make anything new.
When I moved to Spain in 2015, I tried to find the things I enjoyed the most and at the end of 2017 finally bought an electric piano and started playing and composing again. I also came back to singing in a choir, it was an unforgettable experience that sadly came to an end, because of the Pandemic in 2020. In the spring of 2020 I created my YouTube channel where you can find some of my old and also my new compositions and songs. I actually developed a new ability – writing music inspired by specific themes.
After three decades I realized that my perception of music is different, mostly visual. Music makes me feel literally everything – from joy to fear, astonishment to irritation and of course, love and enlightenment. I still try new instruments, forms, ages, because I am always fascinated by antique music, and I also create melodies that are an alloy of old and new.
The "Wheel of Time" community
In the beginning of 2019 I read the news, that Amazon is preparing a new TV show, based on the “Wheel of Time” book series – one of my favorite fantasy books. I had found a new passion and several months later I started writing music inspired by the books. In 2020 I proposed to the new YouTube creator “WoT Up!” that I take care of all the graphics on the channel – the logo, the designs for the videos, the YouTube channel and the Facebook page. Later I created designs and custom music pieces for other Wheel of Time related channels and podcasts.
In 2020 I started my own music YouTube channel. I edit my own videos and create the designs for the channel (including the animations) and I play and record my original piano pieces and sing my songs as well.
In 2021 I started a new YouTube project with a friend of mine, where we discuss the Wheel of Time TV show. For that channel I make the music, the editing and the designs.
AI Art
I tried the AI generated Art when it became really popular. I use Midjourney from September 2022. I mainly generate images inspired by the Wheel of Time, but of course I also make tests with everything that I find fascinating. I mix them mainly in Photoshop, but I got an Ipad and started overpainting in Procreate when needed. I combine these skills in order to achieve the results I’m looking for.
Other design projects
During the years the graphic design was always a hobby of mine, I never stopped developing my skills. From time to time I make projects for friends and family like calendars, posters, flyers, business cards, etc. From 2015 to 2019 I have used my skills to make a lot of designs for social media for the company I worked for. I also made designs for some of the packaging of their products.
I use mainly Adobe Photoshop and sometimes Adobe Illustrator. In 2019 I created a small shop on Zazzle where I tried to make designs for different products.
In the end of 2022 I started my studies in SoftUni Creative and finally in May 2024 I finished the whole program and I received my diploma as UX/UI designer. I´m currently working on several graphic and UX/UI design projects. I´m planning on presenting case studies for some of them.
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