This job might no longer be available.
Senior Character Artist
3 years 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, Sumo Digital has enjoyed 18 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 role @ Sumo Sheffield
Sumo Sheffield is looking for a highly talented and creative Senior Character Artist to join an experienced and passionate team working on multiple exciting AAA titles. The Character Team at Sumo Sheffield is centralised which means this role will be potentially working on numerous titles requiring Character Art work.
Due to our Central Team structure, we’re looking for someone who enjoys working on multiple projects and will happily embrace a wide range of style requirements.
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:
- Transfer your high poly models into low poly models that adhere to required guidelines.
- Have a good knowledge of creating efficient meshes that are good for performance.
- Understand and be experienced in the baking pipeline in order to produce high quality in-game assets.
- Create well laid out, high quality textures suitable for both traditional and PBR pipelines.
- Keep up to date with modern processes in the character art pipeline.
- Create readable documentation for techniques and pipelines for the character production process.
- Be able to schedule your time and others in order to meet the project deadlines
- Have good organisational skills and produce work files that are easily used by others.
- Collaborate with the concept team by highlighting and providing solutions to any design problems before the modelling.
- Work closely with rigging and animation to ensure that your models work well in motion.
- Mentor other Character Artists and share your personal experience to improve our character production process.
- Work with the Lead Character Artist and other disciplines on preproduction tasks.
- Help set the standard for model creation for the project.
We need you to have:
- Be an exceptionally talented Character Artist with a keen artistic eye and a good understanding of the technical requirements of the character art pipeline.
- Have the ability and desire to work in a variety of styles.
- Technically skilled across all areas of character production and be up to date with modern processes.
- Be able to clearly document any workflows you are involved in developing.
- Be able to schedule your time and others to meet project deadlines.
- Work closely with the concept and rigging teams in order to bring characters to life in a practical way, and to help identify and address any potential issues.
- Provide guidance to other Character Artists and share your personal experience to improve our character production processes.
- Be highly self-motivated, proactive and work well within a collaborative team environment.
- Have a strong portfolio that demonstrates a high level of expertise across the entire character creation workflow.
- Be able to demonstrate work across a variety of styles.
- Able to demonstrate a high level of experience in each stage of the character creation process.
- Have several years production experience creating high quality character assets.
- Experience of working with game engines, preferably Unreal Engine 4.
- 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.
Create Your Profile — Game companies can contact you with their relevant job openings.