Thesis Film.

Living through a delicate time of pre–production for my thesis film. Having only one year on my hands for making this film I am holding myself from being overwhelmed and give my senses enough space to breath before jumping into production. Countless notes around my desk, looking at works by masters, both painting and cinematography, reading Russian classics and Japanese haiku, I look for patterns from my perceptions from the past and present, aiming to make a film that will carry in itself a journey of one's life with inspirations, memories, and growth. Above is a culmination of my visual development for the film's looks. The film, titled "Died 100 Times", is planned to be completed in May 2012.  

The Making Of. "Of Stars & People"

This is a storyboard for "Of Stars & People" in a free, unofficial style. It is one of the beginning stages before animation steppes into the process of making a short film. This is one of my most favorite stages, where visuals are coming out for the first time to being without any restrictions, a very intuitive and spontaneous process to allow all sorts of visualizing ideas to come up. At this point the storyboarding process has to be as loose as possible to avoid any restrictions, yet with an eye on staying a minimalist, while touching up only the keys of the story. Then, in the process of making the film, I am keeping the storyboard close to working area at all times. Some of the initial ideas may be changed or followed closely, I show it to friends and colleagues, think about it over and over again. 

Poet - The King of Fools

Just came across the visual development of a character I did at Jon Gomez' Life Drawing class in 2008 at CalArts. Pierre Gringoire - a struggling poet, playwright and a philosopher from Victor Hugo's novel 'The Hunchback of Notre-Dame'.  The poet's character did not appear in Disney's 1996 animated film adaptation. So, here are his looks! The Poet becomes the object of crowd's derision, when the 'King of Fools' title is given to him. 

GRINGOIRE: I am the true King of Fools! I battle for beauty and the ugly gets crowned! What greater fool can there be than I? 

One Boy's Horse and Meeting Norstein.

Found this old sketch of mine while looking for inspiration. This was an early stage of development for "Tomorrow", my short film from 2009, where I had an attempt to show a child's sense of beauty amid devastation of war. 


A year and a half after the production was over, I met a person to whom I am grateful for the biggest inspiration starting from my early age. Yuriy Borisovitch Norstein, an author of "Tale of Tales" and "Hedgehog in the Fog" - my favorite films of all times. On the last day of our meeting I looked through my art with a hope to find something that has a soul, that has no touch of digital, something that I drew with a free mind, and stopped at this sketch. Next, it was framed with brown tape at the back and soon traveled to Moscow! 

My Room.

Found this drawing from my BFA-2 layout class with Dan Hansen at CalArts. The concept of this is showing my room at the time when I was a kid.

"Lifetime of a Wave"

Concept art - project in progress.

Visual Development

"Of Shepherds", a short film from "Oah & Harlam Episodes".

Harlam's running scene.

Still shot from the film. 

Oah & Harlam Character Search.

Angel of Grozny.

Project in progress.

Visual Development.

"ForGiveness", one of the shorts from my "Oah & Harlam Episodes".

Harlam and the Wolves. Still shot from the film. 

Oah Fishing. Still shot from the film.

Pan scene.

Oah and her Crow. Still shot from the film.