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Outsourcing Character Review Artist

Outsourcing Character Review Artist – Maxis

Location: Redwood City, CA

At Maxis , we thrive on outrageous thinking. It’s the fuel that inspires the best games in the world. We’re creators and great storytellers. Our mission is not just about amazing our peers – it’s about amazing our fans. Taking risks. Working with each other. Daring to dream big. Together, we can improve the way millions play every day.

The Sims 4 has a very unique player base with 60% of our audience being women between the ages of 18-24. We are looking for someone with deep insights on how to create the best experience for our players.

As an Outsourcing Character Review Artist, you will maintain the visual style of any assigned project and coordinate and supervise the efforts of vendors to achieve that look. You will work with the outsourcing lead, Art Director, and other art leads to help guide the outsourced content creation on several characters and clothing assets. You will contribute to the success of our outsourcing efforts, and will need to work in a dynamic environment, while maintaining a productive relationship with external partners to provide high quality art with consistency and efficiency.

You will need to collaborate closely with team leads, production, and other art disciplines to develop workflows and pipelines to get artwork prepared, reviewed, and integrated in game. You should have experience giving feedback and understand that most of their time will be spent working on character art reviews. You will report to the Development Manager for the Outsourcing team.

Responsibilities :

• Mentor the external art outsourcing team on a day-to-day basis
• Create highly detailed written reviews on daily content deliveries
• Work closely with the art and tech teams to ensure consistency between the concept, specifications, and final assets
• Work with multiple development disciplines, including non-art specific groups, to assess and improve creative and development pipelines and processes
• Establish and maintain the production requirements to enforce both technical and aesthetical coherence
• Finalize and produce assets both for in-game use and for visual target purposes
• Create outsourcing documentation and communicate requirements to outsourcing partners
• Monitor the quality & consistency of outsourced production
• Revise or change “finished” assets
• Provide quality while maintaining desired schedules

Qualifications :

• 5+ years professional games development experience.
• At least 1 shipped title in the role of Character Artist on PC or major console platform.
• Strong sense of design and an ability to identify styles and trends relating to fashion/interior design and architecture.
• A solid knowledge base in art and design history.
• Experience creating documentation for art pipelines and workflow with external partners.
• Extensive knowledge and proficiency in Maya, Zbrush, and Photoshop
• Expertise with up-to-date art production techniques.
• Excellent artistic skills and experience sharing that knowledge through mentoring, critiques, and tutorials.
• Pro-actively looks for art direction and cooperation with other team members.
• Solid organization and efficient time management. Takes direction and seeks clarification when necessary.
• Self-motivated, able to collaborate with other game team leads in a deadline driven environment.