During these years, Ptushko experimented with various animation techniques, including the combination of puppets and live action in the same frame, and became well known for his skills in cinematic effects work.

Both films were made in full color utilizing the newly invented three-color method by the Russian cinematographer Pavel Mershin.

[6] In 1938, Ptushko began work on The Golden Key, another feature-length film combining stop motion animation with live action.

An adaptation of The Golden Key, or the Adventures of Buratino fairy tale by Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy, which, at the same time, was a retelling of the Pinocchio story, it predated the Disney version by two years.

At the end of World War II, Ptushko returned to Moscow and created his first feature-length folktale adaptation, The Stone Flower using the three-color Agfa film stock which had been seized in Germany.

With its plotline featuring a focus on character over effects and the use of mythology as a primary source, The Stone Flower set the tone for the next twelve years of Ptushko's career.

It retained much of the visual power of Ptushko's previous films, but greatly reduced the fantastical elements and the amount of special effects whilst focusing on character interaction and development to an extent not seen since The Stone Flower.

Following Scarlet Sails, Ptushko made A Tale of Time Lost, a story about children whose youth is stolen by elderly mages, reintroducing a fantastical element.

Running for 149 minutes (split into two feature-length segments), Ruslan and Ludmila was a film adaptation of Alexander Pushkin's epic poem of the same name, and was filled with the sumptuous visuals and technical wizardry for which Ptushko had become known.

[7] When Ptushko's films were released in the United States, they were dubbed and re-edited, and the names of most of the cast and crew members were replaced with pseudonyms.

[8] The three re-edited films from Ptushko's epic fantasy period, The Magic Voyage of Sinbad, The Sword and the Dragon, and The Day the Earth Froze were used as fodder for the show's humorous wisecracks in its fourth, fifth, and sixth seasons (episodes 422, 505, and 617).

It is also worth noting that he has also received some rare praise from the crew; Kevin Murphy, one of the stars of the program, has professed a love for the "breathtaking" visual style and "stunning photography and special effects" of Sampo and Sadko in multiple interviews (though he erroneously credited Alexander Rou's Jack Frost, to Ptushko.