Senior Character Artist

Job Description

Description

Position at ILMxLAB

The Senior Character Artist is a key member of the entire art team at ILMxLAB who works closely with Concept and other Discipline Leads to define and refine distinctive, memorable characters. You proactively seek opportunities to elevate the game, enjoy finding emerging technologies that improve the pipeline, embrace constructive feedback, and thrive in a highly collaborative environment.

We are looking for a leader who reflects the innovative spirit, creative talent, production excellence, collaborative mindset and passion for great storytelling that define ILM & ILMxLAB.

What you'll do
• Partner with Concept, Design, and other creative leads to conceptualize and model characters and hard surface accessories based on original art and photographic reference.
• Work closely with our look-development team to create and apply textures and materials with aesthetic appreciation for real-world references, run-time lighting and story driven aesthetics.
• Create high quality character models and materials/shaders including in-game and high-resolution assets.
• Collaborate with the character technical directors to help define modeling standards for rigging, deformation, and simulation within performance budgets, and other run-time requirements.
• Mentor and lead junior level artists as well as modelers on loan from ILM
• Review work from external partners and provide detailed direction and feedback.
• Become familiar with new tools, performance capture hardware, software and data, and other emerging modeling techniques.
• Actively participate in milestone planning, reviews, and bids for new work.
• Work within deadlines and display strong time management skills.

What we're looking for
• 5+ years of professional experience as a character artist in games, film, feature animation, or other related fields.
• MFA or equivalent experience required.
• Previous experience as a Senior or Lead Character Artist on a published title and have shipping experience on multiple game titles.
• Advanced abilities in Maya, ZBrush or Mudbox and Photoshop. Knowledge of Mari a bonus. Unreal experience preferred.
• Demonstrated ability to work with a high degree of self-direction and balance multiple tasks at once.
• Excellent organizational, communication and interpersonal skills. Good understanding of the critiquing process and how to motivate others.
• Experience collaborating with designers, animators, riggers, engineers to develop new solution/tool/tech/pipeline.
• Self motivation and a passion for the VR/AR industry is essential.
• Solid portfolio showing the following:
• Excellent understanding of human and animal anatomy, with supporting character and costume designs across multiple styles or genres.
• Strong aesthetic appreciation for composition, proportion, mass and volume, light, lighting and color.
• 3D sculpting and modeling abilities interpreting 2D concept.
• Strong paint skills, multi-layered materials and effective texture layout.
• Clear examples of how to emulate real-world materials in CG while considering hardware performance.
• An understanding of garment tailoring, cloth simulation and mesh construction built to deform in a realistic manner in real-time.
• Examples of additional relevant techniques a bonus (Including facial blendshapes and correctives, pose space deformation shapes, animated wrinkles and normal maps, hair and fur, body kits and accessories).

**FOR US BASED NEW HIRES ONLY:** We are taking a responsible approach to creating environments that allow us to do what we do best - entertain and inform millions around the world. As part of our commitment to health and safety, COVID-19 vaccines are required for current US salaried and non-union hourly employees, as well as all newly hired US employees.

Jobcode: Reference SBJ-g6n088-3-22-51-241-42 in your application.