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Illustration Lead - League of Legends

Established in early 2016, the Hong Kong Studio is Riot’s first international game development studio. We’re a diverse team, representing more than 15 nationalities and partnering with teams in the LA headquarters on League of Legends, Teamfight Tactics, and Legends of Runeterra. On top of this, we’re currently building teams for VALORANT, a character-based tactical shooter, and Project L, our take on the fighting game genre.

While operating like a startup—with autonomy and total ownership—we’re doubling down on our goals to build a world-class studio in a vibrant, international city, on a continent that is home to the League of Legends World Champion teams. The Hong Kong Studio is looking for talented, passionate people across all aspects of game development to help build Riot’s blueprint for a global, multi-studio world... and to make great games!

We focus on working together to promote individual autonomy, ownership, collaboration, and inclusivity so every Rioter can be their best while we boldly pursue games. This means less emphasis on titles and hierarchy and more emphasis on creating the right environment to ship excellent experiences to players.

That’s where you come in.

As the Discipline Lead for the Hong Kong League of Legends Illustration team, your craft expertise, leadership and eye for illustration will help deliver deep engagement and rich fantasy worlds to our players.

You’ll continue to build and support a high performing external team, and give them the guidance and context they need in order to deliver amazing illustrations that set industry standards on craft, whist enriching the storytelling of the product they support. Through a mix of craft training and hands on leadership, you will level up the team’s craft, mediate and resolve craft disagreements and misalignments, and keep the team motivated towards creating excellent experiences for our players. Using your broad knowledge of the art, craft and technique of illustration, you’ll set clear goals for your team, and make sure the process of delivering those goals is as smooth as possible for both your team and their stakeholders.

You will partner closely with the product teams and other artists, ensuring the Splash art is not only excellent in a vacuum, but also effectively promotes and aligns with larger products. You will maintain your own craft skills, inspire creativity and keep a high quality bar with hands on illustration work as you deem necessary.

Responsibilities

• As overall Illustration craft lead on the team, you will oversee the quality of the work the team deliver, and set the bar for excellence
• You will build a world class team by sourcing AAA Illustration talent in China, and develop and grow their Illustration skills through training and feedback
• You will collaborate with Rioters in Hong Kong and worldwide, to make sure product goals are fulfilled and working practices are appropriate
• You will set a clear vision, provide consistent feedback, build trust with your team
• Drive the development of Style Guides and Process Guides
• Lead and improve team rituals to support high quality craft and individual growth
• You will accomplish your mission with complete autonomy if the need arises; you're dedicated in finding creative and effective solutions to vigilantly eliminate difficult problems

Required Qualifications

• Demonstrated ability to create high quality 2D Splash Illustrations
• Extreme proficiency in art fundamentals, visual storytelling and color theory
• Expertise in Splash Style including stylized anatomy, heroic compositions and cinematic believability
• Proven experience leading/mentoring teams and individuals. Growth minded and motivated towards teaching, enabling, and coaching other Illustrators
• Experience giving thorough direction and delivering timely, clear feedback
• A strong communicator and able to convey abstract/sophisticated ideas in a concise way, in English or in Chinese

Desired Qualifications

• Art Leadership experience
• Experience teaching Art, and Illustration in particular, on-line or in person
• Familiarly with League of Legends - the game, it’s products, it’s players and community
• Familiarity with League of Legends Characters, IP Universes and Lore
• Mandarin speaker

Our Perks:

• Full relocation support
• Full health insurance for you, your spouse and children
• Open paid time off
• Retirement benefits with company matching
• Life insurance, parental leave, plus short-term and long-term disability
• Play Fund so you can broaden and deepen your knowledge of our players and community through games
• We will double down on your donations of time and money to non-profits

Don’t forget to include a resume and cover letter. We receive a lot of applications, but we’ll notice a fun, well-written intro that shows us you take play seriously.

As a part of the application process, candidates will be expected to provide a portfolio of their work.