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The creative team that brought Mortal Kombat and Injustice to life is now NetherRealm Studios, part of the Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment family. With over 20 years of creation under our belts, NetherRealm’s mission remains the same: to create cutting edge entertainment and deliver industry leading tech, game art and overall gaming experiences. NetherRealm Studios is a collaborative and creative environment, constantly striving to up the ante on what is possible in interactive entertainment. Our team is comprised of dedicated professionals with years of experience who are at the forefront of the gaming industry. The passion and energy that made Mortal Kombat a reality is still on display every day in our offices, our hallways and most definitely the studio’s arcade room.
Join us. Shape your story here.
NetherRealm Studios seeks a Lead Artist responsible for ensuring the character team delivers best-in-class models that push artistic, creative, and technical innovation. The Lead Character Artist works with the Art Director, Art Leads, Concept Artists, and Technical Leads to establish visual standards and technical specifications of character assets for the project. The Lead Character Artist guides other character artists and external partners to deliver work that meets the project standards. The right candidate will look for opportunities to enhance the game, embraces constructive feedback, and excels in a collaborative environment.
The Daily
- Work with art directors, art leads, concept artists and technical partners to refine the look and feel of characters for the project.
- Create high quality character models and materials (textures), including in-game and cinematic assets.
- Provide mentorship for team members.
- Review work from external partners and provide feedback.
- Prototype and work closely with diverse teams consisting of technical artists, artists, designers, and engineers.
- Work with Technical Artists to create and improve tools and workflows.
- Update style and technical documents for the character art team.
- Participate in milestone planning and reviews
The Essentials
- Minimum of 5 years of production experience as a character artist.
- Mastery in industry standard software like Maya, ZBrush, Substance Painter/Designer and Photoshop.
- Demonstrate an expert understanding of human anatomy, clothing construction (wrinkle behavior), proportion, silhouette, and topology, and how it relates to rendering and deformation.
- Demonstrate an understanding of a broad mix of character-related disciplines such as modeling, texturing, shading, rigging and binding, animation, facial animation, and blend shapes.
- Knowledge of the latest industry-standard tools, workflows, and techniques including physically based rendering, and hair grooming.
- Good communication, organizational, time management and interpersonal skills
- Strong leadership, mentoring and teaching abilities.
The Nice to Haves
- Have served as a Lead Character Artist on a published title and have shipping experience on multiple game titles.
- Senior Level or higher technical art experience.
- Experience capturing and working with facial, body, and material scan data.
- Experience with muscle simulation, and clothing simulation software.
- Experience working with large remote teams (outsourcing).
- Experience working with Unreal Engine.
- Passion for making and playing games.
The Perks
- Exclusive WarnerMedia events and advance screenings
- Paid time off every year to volunteer for eligible employees
- Access to well-being tools, resources, and freebies
- Access to in-house learning and development resources
- Part of the WarnerMedia family of powerhouse brands
Warner Media, LLC and its subsidiaries are equal opportunity employers. Qualified candidates will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, mental or physical disability, and genetic information, marital status, citizenship status, military status, protected veteran status or any other category protected by law.
