Hello, my dear friends!
It’s a great pleasure to finally share with you the result of 5 years of work on the Dragon and Me short film.
Unfortunately, I am not allowed to share the full film yet due to the strict rules of film festival submissions, which require the right to the first screening in 2026. However, I am delighted to share the film trailer with you. Please enjoy! 
Interesting facts about the film:
- The Dragon and Me project has attracted over 400,000 followers on Instagram alone, with hundreds of thousands more across other platforms—support and belief that made the film’s production possible.
- This short film serves as a prologue to a planned feature-length production… Hopefully
- The project was brought to life over 5 years of dedicated work, with a total budget of $18,790.
- Iguana Tam, the main character of the film, belongs to an exceptionally rare species—only a few of which exist in the world—and was born blind, bringing a distinctive emotional depth to the narrative.
- The portal light effect in the film was created using a $47 laser measurement line.
- Most of the film was shot on the legendary Canon “Dream Lens” with an ultra-wide 0.95 aperture, contributing to its distinctive visual style.
- A test video of the Draguana in flight went viral, reaching over 6 million views on Instagram and 20+ million on Tiktok.
The film’s creative team consists of 25 people, including artists, animators, musicians, and award-winning specialists such as Jason Snyman (Avatar, Game of Thrones, Godzilla, I, Robot), Nina Fisher (Game of Thrones, The Marvels, Em & Selma - 2025 Sundance selection), Hai-Tao Wu (two-time Emmy Award winner), and others.
Taking this opportunity, I’d like to give a HUGE shoutout to this incredible team—artists and true masters of their craft.
Without you, this film would NEVER have happened.
Five years in production is a long journey. Some of you have been with me from the very beginning, while others joined later.
Nevertheless, I am endlessly grateful for your skills, vision, support, and trust to each and every of you.
Cheers to “Dragon and Me” production team!
Music - Michael Hyman & Madil Hardis
Sound Design – Isiah Kendall
Director of Photography – HaiTao Wu
Camera Operators – Albert Kulakov, Elena Kashpersky
Matchmove, Rotomation, Pre-prod. - Ana Petrovikj, Toni Bozhinovski, Goran Kjulavkovski
Animation - Jason Snyman, Nina Fischer, Eevee Saucedo, Aimee Hochstein, Alexey Kashpersky
Particle systems - CG Record Studio, Amid Rajabi, Lê Vũ Văn Trường, João Teixeira
Draguana 3D model - Alexey Kashpersky
Watch 3D Model - Valentin Sorokin
Rigging - Truong Cg Artist, Alexey Kashpersky
Voice actors - Mark Christiansen, Tim Stephenson
Poster - Lev Savitskiy
Special thanks:
Loucas Rongeart, Jonathan Symmonds, Marcus Ottosson, Paris Hall,
Alexander Ryazanov, Dan Katcher, Dominika Jandlová,
Meleah Maynard, Simon Walker, Samuel Vona, David Martinez,
Al Lemke, Elena Kashpersky, Olha Parchuk, Alexander Thompson and my Mom Olena.
MAXON team – To every and each of you - Thank you for continuous support!
There’s so much more I want to say about this project—both as a whole and in detail—but I believe there will be another chance to share that. For now, this post is just about the first trailer release. Much more coming soon!
P.S. Over all these years working on the film, I’ve felt incredible support from our ZBrush and art community. I’d like to take this chance to say thank you and to share some film-related materials that will, I hope, help you—dear fellow artist—stay motivated and keep your creative spirit alive!
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Sharing all of my 500+ high resolution iguana reptile photo references. Download link.
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Dragon Skin Anatomy and 3D Scales Creation for Artists. Link to video.
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Zbrush to Redshift - the POWER of Vector Displacement. Link to video.
My very best,
Alexey Kashpersky