About
Hello, my name is Derek Kruk. I am a freelance 3D Motion Graphics Designer based in Los Angeles. I pride myself on creating modern and abstract CGI to elevate brands and products within the marketplace. It is my goal to create visually stunning work that is on brand, and aligned with the goals of the project.
My knowledge and expertise comes from a variety of work experiences. Working at traditional VFX houses, virtual reality startups, major furniture brands, and PR agency work. I have produced work for a variety of brands and mediums over those experiences. Including work for video, webpages, virtual reality and immersive experiences.
Specializing in 3D Motion Graphics. I use Houdini, Redshift, Substance Painter and Megascans for creation of my 3D work. I also have expertise in After Effects, Photoshop, Illustrator and Mocha Pro to round out my 2D workflow.
Beginning with initial exploration of your brand, product and goal of the project. We would work together in order to build inspiration, mood-boards, and style-frames that will align the vision and style, with the brand and goal of the project. Following that, we will collaborate on storyboards and final animations that will serve to promote your product and brand visibility on a variety of platforms.
I pride myself on attention to detail given to both the deliverables and relationship with my clients. With the same level of care and craftsmanship for any work. From brief to final delivery, you will find me to be reliable, professional, and dedicated to delivering a product that you will be thrilled with.
I am open to freelancing for short to medium term projects.
For inquires, please contact me at: derek@derekkruk.art
Resume PDF
ViewSkills
Software proficiency
Reel
Experience
• Provide creative direction and mentorship to a team of artist
• Lead in concept development, and pitches for new work
• Collaborate closely with producers to understand client expectations
• Provide critique to work and help guide improvement
• Lead team in Houdini and provided mentorship to junior artist
• Work with producers to create deadlines and budgets for new work• Create 3D/2D motion design animations
• Focus in 3D motion design, animation, and visual effects
• Produce moodboards, styleframes, and storyboards
• Specialize in Houdini Sidefx
• Collaborate with agency and direct to client projects• Create 3D motion design animations
• Responsible for leading 3D department and creating artwork for new business
• Collaborate with clients and art directors to create mood boards and styleframes
• Use Houdini to model, animate, and render projects
• Create variety of art styles that fit within the brand of each client
• Make 3D animations for variety of mediums from webpages, video, or advertisements• Create CG photo-real images for Wayfair's website
• Light and render product images for Wayfair's website
• Use 3DS Max to model, design, and texture architectures for product placement
• Produce photo-real materials in Vray
• Collaborate with Art Directors on brand styles and imagery.• Create, edit, and manage 3D content for VR applications
• Produce content for clients such as Macy’s, La-Z-Boy, and OKA
• Provide feedback and direction to outsource studio artist
• Organize, track, and improve content from outsource studios
• Model and texture assets for client demos• Shipped title “Beyond Tokyo” - HTC VIVEPORT
• 3D artist for narrative driven VR experiences
• Modeled organic and hard surface environment assets
• Creation of original shaders and textures
• Assemble and optimize scenes in Unity• Contract 3D Artist for VR machine learning experince
• Produced stylized game ready assets
• Created shaders in Unity
• Level creation in Unity• Work as an off-site contractor for Jaunt VR • Produce modeled assets in Maya and ZBrush for Jaunt VR app • Complete weekly task for art production team • Create textures to be packaged with models • Build VR ready assets from concept art
• Produced CG art for Jaunt VR App • Modeled CG assets for VR App “Worlds” in Maya • Textured assets in Substance Painter for integration into app • Designed VR ready art for Vive, Gear VR, Oculus, and PSVR • Collaborated with team to concept VR “Worlds” for clients
• Modeled and UV mapped PreVis and commercial assets in Maya • Produced PreVis model archives for scene creation. • Textured assets in Mari under supervision of 3D Lead • Experienced working in CGI pipeline • Learned 3D publishing pipeline