We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Denise Lopez. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Denise below.

Denise , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

It’s kind of a generic answer but I’ve always known? I’ve been creating for as long as I can remember and I’ve never really seen or thought of myself doing anything that wasn’t in the creative field. Both of my parents are also creatives, and it felt natural to follow in their footsteps. Though, what I do isn’t what my parents do; they do more corporate, business professional types of work while I have always gravitated towards the more whimsy, entertainment type of work. While I did do other things like academic decathlon and sports, in grade school I was always the appointed “art kid” that students and teachers would come to for anything art related. Also, a lot of the people around me would say things about how they could see me making art for big name studios or being a decent tattoo artist when I grow up. Not gonna lie, those comments really did a number for my ego when I was younger. Thanks to them though, I’m still doing what I love.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’m Denise but you can also call me Dennis. I’m a full time freelance artist. A lot of my inspiration comes from animations, webtoons/comics/manga/manhwa, folklore/myths and other creators on social media. I currently do freelance where I take on all types of design projects but I do want to work as an illustrator for children’s books or animation studios while still doing fun commissions on the side.

I have done various design projects for a variety of different clients. Some challenges I’ve faced are just trying to figure out what the client’s vision for the project is. Sometimes it’s hard to be on the same page with the client when they don’t give specific details, which I don’t totally blame them for because there’s a chance that they don’t even know what they want and they’re hoping that we know what to do.

I’m pretty proud of the fact that I’m open to trying new things. I mean, it’s a given that clients will sometimes catch you off guard every now and then that creatives should be trying new things all the time, but I’m still proud of myself in that regard. I like that feeling you get when that thing you couldn’t figure out finally clicks and you just have to throw your fists in the air in a silent cheer for yourself. There have been times where I had to learn a new program for a project and sometimes I spend a whole night staring at my screen trying to figure out how to make it work. In the end though, it’s very rewarding to finally have everything go to plan.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

Right now it’s just to keep a sense of normalcy in my life. With all the changes happening in the world and how it’s also affecting my life, creating is one of the constant things that’s never changed in my life. I move to different places, I still draw, I meet and lose touch with people but I still draw. While that’s how I’m feeling about my art right now, I always hope that other people find some positive feelings from it. Right now I’m just uploading everything to my Instagram but I’m hoping to expand and maybe become a book illustrator or a background designer for animation.

If you’re in need of an illustrator or wanna commission me, let me know!

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Something that I had to unlearn is that you have to be perfect all the time and failing shouldn’t be /isn’t an option. Which isn’t true, I had to come to terms with the fact that you have to fail before you succeed and that failing is okay. Growing up, I was always surrounded by people who always said things that made me think I was perfect. That I could do no wrong and that failing wasn’t something I did (unless it was math…I was never good at math). So now that I’m older, the concept of failing has become something I’ve become very afraid of which leads me to not wanting to post half of my work and it also hindered me from applying myself in anything for a period of time. I’ve gotten better and I’m able to overcome that fear long enough to do what I want before my anxiety eats me alive again. I hope that people who feel the same know that they’re not alone and that I’m pretty sure that a lot of creatives can relate to this to some extent.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://dkailalopez.myportfolio.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/sadboitheartist