Vitali Konstantinov was born in Ukraine. As a child he saw the desman at the natural history museum and was fascinated. Vitali studied architecture, graphic art, painting, and art history, and has taught illustration courses at universities in several countries as well as numerous workshops for children. His work has been exhibited extensively, has received many prizes, and has been published in forty different countries. Most recently he was nominated for the Deutsche Jugendliteraturpreis. Today Vitali works as a freelance illustrator and author and lives in Marburg. He drew the illustrations for Genius Noses with drawing ink and colored pencil on watercolor paper.