Neznaika. Concept Art

Since today we want to show some concept art done by Grigory Lozinsky for NEZNAIKA ON THE MOON, it is necessary to tell more in detail about the world of the book of Nikolai Nosov. Neznaika and his friends are some form of liliputians actually. One may call them Shorties. Therefore usual plants, fruit and vegetables are really big for them. But on the Inner Moon all is different. The Lunarians are shorties also but THEIR fruits and vegetables are quite correspond to them on the size. It can sound weird and strange but all is pretty logical and clearly in a context of the book.

Illustrations. Part 1

Today we present to you the book illustrations of Igor Oleynikov. He was one of the lead artists of PRINCE VLADIMIR. He did some storyboards, layouts, color schemes for scenes etc.

Bad guys

In 1964 famous Soviet writer Nikolai Nosov has written the children's book NEZNAIKA ON THE MOON about new adventures of Neznaika who was extremely popular character in Soviet Union. One may translate his name as someone who usually “doesn’t know” (antipode of the know-it-all). And this book was about space travel of Neznaika and his adventures on the Moon where he has found out that the Moon is hollow and there is another planet with the atmosphere and inhabitants under the external surface. The piquancy was that society on this Inner Moon was a capitalistic. Thus it was a travel from fantastic world of communism to the world of markets and money. Nosov has described in details many things that Soviet children didn’t know at all. Think about the stock exchanges, shares, unemployment, commercial advertising, billionaires, strikebreakers and many other things. The book was a hilarious and very cinematic. Nevertheless there were not any attempts to make the screen version up to the middle of 90th years. By this time the life in Russia has changed dramatically and in conditions of new system of values it was decided to remove any political implied sense from proposed animated feature. Now the villains were bad not because they were exploiters, but because they didn’t care about ecology on their planet. It was a shame actually but this post is not about it. We want to show couple of concept drawings of bad guys. This is another work of Grigory Lozinsky.



And this drawing demand additional comment. It is the playful parody on the famous picture THE GIRL WITH PEACHES (1887) of Valentin Serov actually. We put here the parody and the original both.


As to animated feature. It has received ambiguous responses. It should be better.

Prince Vladimir. Concept Art 4

In the end of week [as usual] we want to show you something calming and beautiful. So here the concept art done by Grigory Lozinsky

New blog. Andrei Riabovitchev

I'm glad to inform that Andrei Riabovitchev, has opened his personal blog.
http://andreiriabovitchev.blogspot.com/
As you probably already know, Andrei is character production designer of PRINCE VLADIMIR russian animated feature. So now there are two Russians blogs at least. And here you can see some Andrei's live drawings. I'm sure that soon he will publish much more on the pages of his own blog.

Prince Vladimir. The villian.

Bagheera

At the request. Bagheera is really appealing and unusual character. One may think that she is the main reason why Russians prefers Soviet version of JUNGLE BOOK instead of Disney's.

Photo Study

Here you can see the drawings of Andrei Riabovitchev.

MOWGLI. Other characters

Baloo (the wise teacher):

Shere Khan

Kaa

Titles of the parts - RAKSHA, ABDUCTION, LAST HUNTING OF AKELA, FIGHT, RETURNING TO PEOPLE
Original titles - "Ракша", "Похищение", "Последняя охота Aкелы", "Битва", "Возвращение к людям"
Director - Roman Davydov
Production Designer - Petr Repkin & Alexander Vinokurov

MOWGLI

It was not a rare thing that Soviet and Western animation studios have made the screen versions of the same book. The own versions of CINDERELLA, ALICE IN WONDERLAND, THUMBELINA and others was created in USSR. Usually it was the books which have become public domain. Sometimes (in case of WINNIE THE POOH for example) the cartoons were created to the detriment of owners of legitimate rights. And practically always Soviet artists used the most different approaches to a form of screen version. A vivid example is the Russian version of THE JUNGLE BOOK. It is not a short cartoon. It is an epic five parts animated film which was created within several years by Soyuzmultfilm animation studio. The first part was released in 1967 (whether it was a casual concurrence? Who knows?) and the last appeared in 1971. All five parts consistently narrates the story of becoming adult of Mowgli, the boy who lived with wolves. Unlike the Disney version the Soviet MOWGLI is quite true to the Rudyard Kipling's classic tale.
Some stills will help us to introduce the main characters to you:

young Mowgli

Raksha the Satan

Akela

Bagheera

Mowgli with Shere Khan

Prince Vladimir. Concept Art 3

The part of the story of PRINCE VLADIMIR took place in Costantinople. The Slavs called it Tsargrad (Caesar of cities or the city of Caesar).

Prince Vladimir. Concept Art 2

The next posts on our blog will appear on monday likely. For now please take a look at this beauty...
Again this is the work of Grigory Lozinsky

Interiors

It is necessary to tell that these ones does not concern to animation actually. These interiors have been developed by Grigory Lozinsky under the order of the our Government. We're place it here for you pleasure. Hope you like them.