Redwall Collectors Community: The Art Book of Anton Lomaev

Contributed by LordTBT at 5:32PM GMT, 06 January 2025

Happy 2025! Today, we're reviewing the art book of Russian Redwall illustrator Anton Lomaev (Антон Ломаев). Published in March 2024, Lomaev's art book, Фэнтези, ("Fantasy" in English) features works he's created throughout his multi-decade career as a professional artist and offers the descriptions and stories behind the art.

As it was published in Russia, it was extremely difficult to get a hold of due to current global affairs. Luckily, we are the Redwall Wiki.

Fantasy is an extensive 224-page hardcover, approximately 12.5in x 9in in size. In total, there are more than 500 illustrations inside. It provides larger, clearer, unvarnished versions of Lomaev's artworks, unburdened by editorial text and/or publisher size restrictions.

Just some of the highlighted works involve The Lord of the Rings, The Wolfhound and its comic adaptations by Maria Semyonova, and the Welkin Weasels series by Garry Kilworth.

The artwork from Lomaev's Redwall series covers, published between 2004 - 2008 (Pearls of Lutra through Eulalia!) appears in the Children's Fantasy section of the book. Redwall receives a stunning 10-page spread, allowing for an in-depth look at the beauty of the characters.

"Perhaps my biggest work for children's fantasy was drawing illustrations for Brian Jacques' novels," Lomaev wrote. "Azbuka Publishing attracted me to draw for this series when its style and design had already been approved ... I had a hand in the design of eleven of the nineteen books in the Redwall cycle. According to the conditions of the series design, one of the main characters had to be depicted on the cover in silhouette. In addition, two illustrations had to be drawn in a square placed on the corner in the front and back sides of the cover. The color of the binding behind the character could be varied, which allowed each illustration to be advantageously shaded and to achieve a variety of covers with a single design style."

Over the course of the pages, Lomaev spotlights his cover artwork from Rakkety Tam, The Legend of Luke, Loamhedge, Triss, The Long Patrol, High Rhulain, Taggerung, Marlfox, and Eulalia!. He also described the series as "undoubtedly fantasy in the nature of [the] plots and colors."

When Fantasy was released, Lomaev signed 300 copies for Moscow Books. We feel really fortunate to have acquired one of these special autographed editions. It really is a gorgeous book of art that can be appreciated even if you don't speak a word of Russian.