Nikola Damjanov Senior Game Artist Nordeus damjanmx@gmail.com Summary Hello, nice to meet you. I'm a generalist 3D artist with 10 years of versatile experience. I started my higher education as an engineer but pivoted to interactive media after couple of years. My professional baby-steps were making models, animations and VFX for music videos and movies. After that, I ventured into architectural and product visualization for some time, but then transitioned into graphics and web design. I was making interactive art installations in parallel, for most of the time, but I did find my happy place eventually - as a game artist. For the past 6 years I've been actively improving my artistic skills, exploring new tools and adopting them as early as possible. Every day I get excited about tech and how it can influence art and development so I do spend a lot of personal time tinkering and experimenting. I really enjoy playing around with everything I can get my hands on. Nordeus helped me channel my passion, focus and broad skill-set into an artist I am today. I have moved quite a lot through the company and at the moment I'm very happy working as a real-time VFX artist. Aside from my daily activities, I cherish the big picture and try to shape it in every way I can. That's why I'm also heavily involved in hiring, interviewing, mentoring and overall maintenance of the company culture. Internet and communities help me grow every day so I tend to give back as well. I take active part in several game-art communities, write blog posts whenever I can and generally like to share everything I know but also expect to learn something from everyone. If you wan't to know more about me feel free to read ahead. Or contact me if you want to talk about something specific. Experience Game Artist at Nordeus January 2012 - Present As a senior employee in the company and as a first in-house artist, from day one I was involved in hiring and recruiting processes, and still am. I'm also active in in-house training, lecturing and upholding the high standards of Nordeus culture. I often represent the company both in internal events and external, as a regular conference speaker. Page 1
Spellsouls July 2016 - now My daily activities include production of real-time VFX for the game, leading the VFX team and serving as a communication channel. City-building game (undisclosed project) December 2014 - July 2016 Modeling and texturing buildings, environments and props. Setting up procedural systems for rapid prototyping of assets and shaders. From time to time, I was rigging characters and cleaning up mo-cap data to suite those rigs. Prototyping November 2014 - December 2014 Prototyping was done in very small teams so artists were unicorns. My duties were mostly modeling, texturing and engine implementation but also animation, level design, UI and UX. Undisclosed project 2013 Modeling and texturing for most of the time. I was also responsible for outsource management and quality control. Sportster October 2012 - October 2014 Sportster was an online betting game where I had a major art role from the very beginning. Main task was to manage outsources and occasionally art-direct them. Half way through development we moved all art production in-house so I took responsibilities for delivering UI, VFX, graphics design and interaction design. Top Eleven Page 2
Jan 2012 - Jun 2014 During my time on TopEleven I was mainly in charge for communication and management of our outsource vendors. Later, as we hired more artist I moved into more of a production role, doing graphic design and UI. At the time I was also co-operating daily with game designers on building features and defining UX. Public speaking and lecturing January 2012 - Present 2017 Unite Europe - The Real-time VFX of Spellsouls https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzwkdw03gls https://unite.unity.com/2017/europe Reboot 2017 - Rebooting the Nordeus Art http://www.rebootdevelop.hr/ 2016 17th Unity Meetup - PBR Texturing https://www.meetup.com/unity-serbia-meetup-group/events/233910134/ 2015 Nova Iskra - Design as part of the game http://novaiskra.com/en/programs/nordeus 4th Unity Meetup - Computer Graphics https://www.meetup.com/unity-serbia-meetup-group/events/222453517/ 2014 Belgrade Behance Reviews - Top Eleven UX+UI https://www.slideshare.net/nordeus/belgrade-behance-reviews-2014-nordeus-top-eleven-uxui 2013 Belgrade Design Week - A new ground and a new face https://vimeo.com/69772666 Page 3
ReBrand Serbia - Top Eleven football manager as a Leading Serbian and World Brand in the Digital World http://www.rebrand.rs/index_en.html 2012 Metropolitan University - Guest Lecture - Growing as an Artist Founder at Fresh Wesh April 2009 - December 2014 (5 years 9 months) I have founded Fresh Wesh, an unprofitable organization which experiments with interactive installations and interface design. We had multiple exhibitions over the years, showcasing interactive art installations. http://www.freshwesh.com/ Freelance 3D Artist 2003-2012 (10 years) For years I was working as a freelance artist in various roles and projects, doing interaction design, game art, graphic design, web design, 3D modeling, animation, video production, real-time graphics, visual effects, compositing, tutoring etc. Relevant projects and clients Gorenje, Herotopia, No Format, IAAC, Continental Wind Partners, Various Bands (Death Stars, Hammerfall, Moonspell, Type O Negative, Scar Symmetry, Blind Guardian, Kamelot...), Microsoft ImagineCUP, Global Gaming, Puzzle Group, Prone Wakeboards, Energoprojekt, ISWIB 3D Artist 2007-2010 (4 years) In remiks my primary job was 3D visualization but I was involved in interior, furniture and industrial design whenever possible. Most prominent projects include Telenor's flagship store in Belgrade and Supermarket concept store. https://www.facebook.com/creativestudioremiks/ 3D Artist 2006-2007 (2 years) In Spring studio I was working on various 3D visualizations, modeling and rendering. Page 4
Education Faculty of Digital Arts Bachelor of Arts - BA, Interactive Media Design, 2008-2013 Activities and Societies: Founder of a student interactive art movement - "Fresh Wesh" Faculty Of Electrical Engineering no degree, Computer Science, 2002-2010 Page 5
Nikola Damjanov Senior Game Artist Nordeus damjanmx@gmail.com Contact Nikola on LinkedIn Page 6