Serhii Olenich - Art Director and Project Manager, Whykingz

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Work Background

APFFreelance Art Director

Jun. 2022 - Dec. 2022Riga, LatviaHere I led the development of art for a creative marketing campaign - a mobile game "The Chick Game" to promote buying APF's eggs in Latvia's grocery stores. I was responsible for 2d art branding, concepts, logo design, website assets design, character design, NFT-like skin system for 2d characters, and Game UI graphics. Consulted, offered optimal solutions to art problems, hired suitable art performers, and reduced risks.

FortySeven Software ProfessionalsArt Outsource Manager

Jan. 2022 - Dec. 2022Lisbon, Portugal✅ In less than a month, I assembled an art team of 12 permanent freelancers, which allowed the client not to delay the development of the game and receive graphics in large volumes with the quality supervised by me. ✅ My team created 114 mid-core characters and spell illustrations. For fantasy CCG. For terms 2-3 times faster than allocated in similar projects. And, accordingly, it is more effective for the project budget. ✅ Developed a pipeline based on the narrow specialization of each of the involved artists. This is how we managed to get synergy and high final quality without hiring more experienced and expensive middle+ level artists. Which also saved the client's budget. ✅ The company was satisfied and has invited to work with an important external client. To develop art for a mobile casual game as part of a marketing campaign for the largest egg producer in the Baltic States. There I also led the development of art, consulted, offered optimal solutions to art problems, selected performers and reduced risks. **Key Responsibilities:** - Determining the needs and expectations of the client during Google Meet calls. The direction and consultation of every involved person, taking this information into account. - Consulting and suggesting options for solving art problems. - Finding, selecting and hiring freelancers who are suitable for tasks and budget. - Formed and tracked tasks according to the Agile principle (Kanban boards in Trello) and in GoogleSheets. - Monitoring the execution of tasks on time and with consistent production quality of the art. - Ensuring consistent style across artists by writing guides in GoogleDocs and by recording video demos (OBS). - Resolving and preventing dissatisfaction and conflicts through nonviolent communication and creating a trusting atmosphere in the team. -To foresee technical limitations and took into account the mechanics of the game when giving feedback. -Preparing and optimizing files for use by developers in Unity.

The WhyKingz Lead Artist

Mar. 2020Riga, LatviaAchievements: ✅ Developed seven effective tools for optimizing the work of art-department and related departments. ✅ Wrote documentation from zero for the art department: on stylistics, work standards, file organization, and on certain typical tasks. To increase the autonomy of employees. ✅ Developed employees in the team to the level of independent performance of typical tasks. ✅ Conducted a statistical study of art performance and increased the CTOR conversion in email newsletters by 6% compared to the previous one. Monitored the implementation by a team the 9 criteria that positively affect the conversion. Key Responsibilities: - Creation of 2D graphics in Photoshop. 3D graphics in Blender. Animations in AfterEffects. - Performance management of the team of 7 artists. Making sure they meet deadlines, styles, quality standards. Using Jira, Slack, Confluence. - Developmet-focused feedback. By discussing strengths, areas of development. And setting personal development plans for employees. - Critical feedback. By discussing with the employee the facts that indicate responsibility. Agreeing on a plan for correcting issues and preventing future violations. - Keeping order and organizing the cloud file system. - Cooperation with other departments involved in the development.

The WhyKingz 2D/3D Artist

Oct. 2018 - Mar. 2020Riga, LatviaAchievements: ✅ Did analisis and improved the style of one of the projects. Got approved by CEO. Created style guide for a team. ✅ Created animated e-mail illustrations instead of static images. Was the first who used 3d character animation for email illustrations. with the same deadlines as for static images. ✅ Conducted a study based on the statistics of our email marketing. Manually assessed 30 features of each of the 200+ illustrations in our emails. Found 9 key factors correlated with conversion. Key Responsibilities: - Creation of 2D graphics in Photoshop in 5 different styles. - Creation of multi-figure dynamic promotional illustrations for the main web pages of projects. - Creation of entertaining illustrations for E-mail marketing. - Creation of 3D graphics in Blender and MagicaVoxel. - Creating 2D Animations in AfterEffects.And 3D animations in Blender. - Creation of Collages from existing assets. - Creation of packages of resizes of existing illustrations for different needs. Using Photoshop automation tools and batch processing.

FiverrFreelance Digital Artist

Jun. 2015 - Oct. 2018UkraineAchievements: ✅ 479+ completed orders. 0 negative reviews. 5 stars rating. ✅ Produced an animated music video with a duration of 3.5 minutes. Consisting of 40 animated scenes. In Photoshop + After Effects. ✅ Colored 600+ pages of Sci-fi action comics. 3-5 frames per page. ✅ Illustrated and prepared for printing a 100-page fantasy DnD book. Responsibilities: - Drawing illustrations using Photoshop. For book covers and music albums. - Lineart rendering as a comic colorist in SAI and Photoshop. Convey mood and atmosphere through color and lighting. - Creating animations in After Effects. - Advanced photo manipulation in Photoshop. Photobash, realistic addition of objects to a photo, change of objects.