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Lead Outsourcing Artist

ABOUT SPLASH DAMAGE

We believe that games play better with friends. For more than 20 years, we’ve been creating team-based multiplayer experiences that have entertained tens of millions of players all over the world and forged countless new friendships along the way.

Our studio culture is rooted in our open, friendly, and collaborative environment. Our games are made by people from all over the world, from our entry-level Fresh Talent hires to industry veterans, and we believe that fostering that diverse culture is the best way to build both our games and our studio. We have won numerous awards, including a ‘World-Class’ accreditation by Best Companies and being named one of the UK’s 100 Best Large Companies to work for.

While our offices are based in Bromley, UK, our people have access to progressive working patterns that give them the flexibility to decide how to do their best work.

Benefits:

We offer a comprehensive benefits package for you and your family, including:

• Work your way with access to progressive working patterns including hybrid and fully remote
• Substantial performance-related pay system on top of your basic compensation, along with enhanced pension contributions and our life assurance scheme
• Bespoke VISA and relocation packages for you and your family, with support from our team throughout the whole process
• 25 days of holiday and 8 Bank Holidays a year, plus our annual studio closure between Christmas and New Year’s
• Private Medical and Dental Cover for you and your family, along with a 24/7 digital GP service
• Extensive Mental Health support, with Line Manager Mental Health training, a group of Mental Health First-Aiders, and on-site or remote counselling
• Our bespoke Learning and Development course framework to help you grow as an employee, manager, and leader
• Industry-leading fully paid 30 weeks maternity leave & 10 weeks paternity leave

THE ROLE

The Lead Outsourcing Artist is responsible for maintaining the established quality and artistic consistency of all external art development, as set out by project art direction. Your focus will span across a number of art sub-disciplines including Character, Cinematics, Concept, Environment, Prop, Technical, Vehicle, and Weapons.

The role requires strong artistic skill complimented with a proficient ability in reviewing, providing feedback, and tracking of art delivery progress. You will be skilled in the creation of artwork, assist in the organisation and review process of external assets, and lastly, ensuring consistency between internal and external quality bars. Demonstrating an equal mix of artistic flare, direction, leadership, and communication skills.

As a Lead Outsourcing Artist, you also understand the various constraints during game development, including performance, memory and frame budgets, production schedules, and design requirements.

Responsibilities

• Work closely with the Art Director to understand and communicate the expectations for visual quality of in-game art with external teams.
• Align closely with the Lead Artist and Art Sub-Discipline Leads to keep quality and style consistent across all outsourced art.
• Coordinates with the internal art teams to facilitate the smooth movement of art assets between them and their external teams.
• Works alongside the Production and LT teams to ensure assets are delivered on time, and to the required aesthetic and technical quality level.
• Assist Art Sub-Discipline Leads with authoring of briefs, assets packs, and documentation for external teams.
• Work with game teams to set benchmarks for efficiency and end product quality.
• Maintaining good relationships between the internal and external teams.
• Handling briefing, tracking, and process.
• Ensuring strong communication of our game’s art style, needs, and quality expectation – both aesthetically and technically, to our external teams.
• Works with Art Director and Outsourcing Manager to identify, and schedule, assets for external development.
• Set up and document art pipelines, further develop best practices, and continually optimise workflows.
• Writes and/or oversees documentation and briefs for external teams.
• Works with the internal Concept team to ensure concepts are at the right level of quality/detail for briefing external teams.
• Works closely with art disciplines to ensure that assets are briefed in a timely manner to the external team.
• Organise and prepare asset packs for our external teams.
• Organise and prepare outsource assets for art reviews with the Art Director.
• Coordinate feedback between the internal art teams and external providers.
• Ensure art assets are made available to the internal art team members, and feedback is made available to the external art team members.
• Participates in project planning and maintains a clear and consistent schedule in conjunction with Production and Outsourcing Manager.

Essential Skills and Experience

• Experience as a professional artist or equivalent.
• Art leadership and management experience; ideally in an external capacity.
• Completed work on several published AAA titles.
• Proficient with standard industry tools like Maya, ZBrush, Substance Packages, Photoshop, and Perforce.
• Experience in:
  • Animation (facial, keyframe, and mocap)
  • Characters (modelling, texturing, rigging, and Skinning)
  • Environment/Vehicles/Weapons (modelling, texturing, and optimisation)
• Advanced understanding of high-to-low poly pipelines, PBR lighting/material authoring, and can set best practices to reduce visual issues/bugs.
• Solid understanding of game engine limitations; memory, GPU, and CPU performance.
• Excellent spoken, written and diagrammatic communication skills. Fully capable of explaining complex instructions to an external team.
• Ability to work with detailed concept art or reference art/materials when providing support to external teams.
• Thorough understanding of game art and creation processes; for example, high resolution sculpting, UV layout, texturing, and shaders.
• Capable in identify risks and issues within any asset creation pipeline (internal and external) and can proactively seek and implement solutions.
• Able to evaluate and assess assets from external teams against aesthetic, technical, and time budgets.
• Willingness to travel when necessary.

Splash Damage is an equal opportunity employer. We believe our teams create better work when they have a range of perspectives to draw from, and we are committed to creating an inclusive working environment that celebrates diversity.