Case «All the emotions of Game Dev»

TO FIND A FACIAL ANIMATOR

Our client is an outsource game development company. Their portfolio has several worldwide popular games. In 2015 the company was working on a new project that required a specialist in facial animation for the characters.

We were looking for a senior specialist with experience in motion capture and over 5 years of work experience in the field. Our client's local market had no more than a dozen specialists in this area. Plus, the company needed a team player. No lonesome rock stars, thanks.

We were hunting for a white tiger.

GAME STUDIOS AND MORE

Talented animators tend to show their work online. The biggest platforms for those are ArtStation and Behance, and that was our first stop.

We manually went through more than a hundred people but alas, most of them were more artists than animators, while the others were too weak for the position. We had met our share of convinced freelancers, who liked our client but loved their freedom.

There was no other choice but to go headhunting. We found all the visual studios that worked with live 3D characters — all of them created great shooters, action games, and RPGs. Among their employees, we highlighted those responsible for facial animations and contacted them on social media.

We found seven candidates.

The suitable one was found in a no-name studio in Kyiv. The folks there made low-budget, yet interesting and unusual games. At first, the animator wasn’t so interested in changing location, but we persuaded him to talk to our client. What’s the worst that could happen from just a talk, right? The candidate ended up changing his mind: our client’s project captivated him and offered better prospects.