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Associate Character Artist - College Football (CONTRACTOR)

EA SPORTS is one of the leading sports entertainment brands in the world, with top-selling videogame franchises, award-winning interactive technology, fan programs, and cross-platform digital experiences. EA SPORTS creates connected experiences that ignite the emotion of sport through industry-leading sports video games, including Madden NFL football, FIFA soccer, NHL® hockey, and EA SPORTS UFC .

EA SPORTS Madden NFL is the best-selling sports property in U.S. Video game history. Madden NFL is an immersive, simulation-based, authentic NFL interactive experience, empowering fans to play out their NFL fantasy of winning the Super Bowl (and much more). Madden NFL has entertained fans over three decades with more than 130 million lifetime units sold.

Madden NFL is developed at EA's Tiburon Studio in Orlando, FL, and Madrid, Spain by a team that prides itself on innovation and creative collaboration. We are looking for talent with a passion for sports to create experiences that connect with millions of football fans around the world to grow the love of the sport.

The EA SPORTS ART team is a global community of content creators covering Characters, Environments, Lighting, Project Management, Technical Art, and Visual Effects. Fueled by imagination and a unified passion to grow the love of sports for players worldwide, we push visual boundaries and create leading edge content. Serving our broad portfolio of sports titles, we create amazing games for hundreds of millions of sports fans worldwide through inspiring visuals and immersive experiences. We are a diverse group that encourages team members to bring their unique perspectives and expertise to the table.

Role Overview:

The character artist is an important role in top-tier video game creation. In the context of our games, they create the cast of characters that populate the game universe. Our character artists are dynamic and efficient modelers with sculpting and texturing skills – able to create outstanding content with an imagination that is constantly in motion. We create amazing character models based on scan data, photo references or traditional 3d means.

Committed to supporting our games with the creation of amazing Content, the EA Sports Art Characters team enriches players' experience with a cast of characters and variety of character accessories such full body outfits, hair and headgear

Your Responsibilities

The Character Artist builds the geometry of organic and inorganic characters in the game. EA Character Artists are experienced in human character modeling of both realistic and stylized figures in Maya. Character models are complex and detailed in video games with some characters coming close to 500,000 polygons. Reporting to the team Development Manager, the Character Modeler will be asked to show an interest in opportunities to improve character creation across multiple teams within EA. You will work directly with the Lead Character Modeler and the AD to ensure content is meeting the quality bar.

Your Qualifications

• 1+ years' experience in modeling and character art
• Bachelor's degree or higher
• A portfolio in realistic character art. Please provide a link to a portfolio on your resume.
• Experience working with Maya, Photoshop, and ZBrush
• Experience prototyping and working with diverse teams consisting of technical artists, artists, and engineers.
• Knowledge of new industry-standard tools, workflows, and techniques including physically based rendering.
• 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 & binding, animation, facial animation, and blend shapes.
• Demonstrate an expert ability to prepare assets for physical simulations such as cloth, hair.
• Demonstrate an excellent ability to interpret 2D reference material and scan data into 3D textured and surfaced models.
• Demonstrate an ability to document workflows that will be used by our teams.