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Lead Character Artist
1 year ago
With a rich history of developing multiple AAA franchises such as Little Big Planet and Crackdown, as well as contributing to genre-defining titles like the Forza Motorsport and Hitman series, Sumo Sheffield’s vast development experience spans multiple genres and platforms.
As winners of the TIGA Star Employment Award for 2021, recipients of the GI Biz 2020 Best Places to Work Award and listed as one of the UK’s 100 Best Large Companies to Work for in 2021 and 2022, Sumo Digital has enjoyed 20 years of stability and growth since its formation in 2003 and continues to strive for excellence across every single project.
The team have a track record of working on some of the world's biggest and best games and received two BAFTAs for their work on Sackboy: A Big Adventure. As the scale and exclusivity of projects continues to grow, there’s never been a more exciting time to join the Sumo Sheffield family!
The opportunity @ Sumo Sheffield
Sumo Sheffield has an exciting opportunity for an aspiring or current Lead Character Artist to join a AAA studio working on multiple own IP projects with a variety of art styles and genres! As Lead Character Artist, you will lead on Character design and team management, working with the Character Director to bring our Characters to life. You will also develop, mentor and upskill more Junior Artists and provide support for process and innovation.
You will create high-quality characters for our games, setting the quality bar and working practices to deliver great-looking Heroes and Villains that our players want to be. This is also a bigger opportunity to own character art for our growing studio – to create and direct a character team as only you can.
This position is offered on a fully remote, hybrid or in-studio basis. Any remote working must be located from within the UK.
Within this role you will:
- Craft high poly character models across multiple genres and art style.
- Use your experience to collaborate with the Art Director, Tech Artists and Concept team to mitigate against design problems before modelling commences.
- Transfer your high poly models into low poly models that adhere to required guidelines.
- Have a deep knowledge of creating efficient meshes that are good for performance, rigging and animation, working closely with the animation well-laid-out.
- Create well laid out, high-quality textures suitable for both traditional and PBR pipelines.
- Be able to direct tech art on shader requirements and other technical processes related to characters.
- Keep up to date with modern processes and tools in the character art pipeline.
- Assist expansion of the character art team through portfolio appraisals and interviewing candidates.
- Mentor character artists and share your personal experience to drive the character production process to your vision.
- Create or direct others to create documentation for techniques and pipelines in the character production process and knowledge sharing with other teams and junior artists.
- In tandem with production create a backlog of tasks, schedule your own and the teams time to meet the project deadlines.
- Actively seek out feedback.
- Set the benchmark for character art at the studio.
To be successful you will have:
- Ideally, 8+ years’ experience creating characters for games as a senior or lead artist.
- Been through the full development cycle of at least 3 games.
- Be an exceptionally talented Character Artist with a keen artistic eye and a good understanding of the technical requirements of the character art pipeline.
- Strong demo reel/portfolio showing game-ready assets.
- Experience of working with the other disciplines, advising on best practices and pitfalls where appropriate.
- Technically skilled across all areas of character production and be up to date with modern processes.
- Self-motivation, proactivity, and the desire to work within a collaborative team environment.
- The ability to implement and troubleshoot your own work in game engines.
- Experience in UE4 or unity is desirable.
- An in-depth understanding of the game development process.
What we offer:
. Defined Annual Bonus Scheme
. ULEV car scheme
. Monthly allowance to spend on enhancing benefits
. Salary Sacrifice Pension
. Flexible Working
. 21 days free-use holiday
+ your birthday off
+ 5 learning days including 1 volunteer day
+ a duvet day
+ Christmas shutdown from Christmas Eve to New Year
+ Bank Holidays
+ extra allowance accrued for longer service
. Free dental insurance
. Life Assurance 4x Salary
. Income Protection of 75% for 5 years
. Enhanced Mat/Paternity & Adoption pay
. Employee Assistance Programme:
. Help at Hand - Remote GP, Mental Health & Physio appointments
. Free financial & home buying support consultations
. Cycle to Work Scheme
. Payroll Giving Scheme
. Access to 4,000 Udemy Courses
. Career Development Pathway
. Wrap Parties.
. Project Completion Awards
. Game/Creative Jams
. Big Family Events
. Studio social activities, e.g. running, board games, film, yoga, life drawing…
. Prism – Sumo’s employee diversity focus group
. Free fruit and drinks in our studios
. Employee Referral Bonus
Where do we stand on diversity?
At Sumo, we want to enable everyone to bring their full, authentic selves to work every single day. We acknowledge that the games industry is far from perfect and a global organisation with people all over the world, from all kinds of backgrounds, we know it’s part of our duty to provide everyone at Sumo with a safe, accepting and affirming working environment.
We encourage and welcome applicants from all backgrounds.
More about Sumo Sheffield
Sumo Sheffield is located just outside the city centre in Sumo Digital’s HQ, just off J34 on the M1 and a stone’s throw from the city’s primary shopping and leisure complex. With a multi-building campus comprised of industry-leading facilities, an onsite gym and subsidised canteen, Sumo Sheffield provides everything needed for all teams to create the world’s best games.
Sheffield is the fifth largest city in the UK and is easily accessible by road and rail from Leeds, Manchester and the Midlands. The city enjoys a wealth of facilities to suit a wide array of interests, including:
o World-class sports facilities
o Iconic theatres and galleries
o Multiple retail and shopping experiences
o Diverse and renowned restaurants and eateries
o The award-winning National Video Game Museum
More about Sumo Digital
Sumo Digital is an award-winning international family of studios. Recent releases from Sumo Digital studios include: BAFTA-Award winning Sackboy: A Big Adventure, Hood: Outlaws & Legends, Control Ultimate Edition on Google Stadia, Apple Arcade Award-winning Little Orpheus, Hot Shot Racing, WST Snooker and Spyder.
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