Senior Character Artist

Job Title: Senior Character Artist Team: Art & Animation Reporting into: Head of Art & Animation Hybrid working status: Fully remote available/Hybrid Studio Overview  We are Sports Interactive   The gaming studio behind: ⚽ Football Manager.  Founded in 1994, Sports Interactive became a wholly owned subsidiary of SEGA Europe in 2006. Based at the Here East technology hub in Stratford, East London, the SI team continues to expand as we bring our titles to an ever-growing audience across an increasing variety of platforms.  To support our growth, we welcome the opportunity to connect with passionate people with the drive to match our ambitions and initiative to realise your individual potential.  Position OverviewWe are seeking an experienced and highly efficient Senior Character Artist to join our art team. The ideal candidate can work quickly without sacrificing quality, with a deep understanding of character creation pipelines, high-poly modelling, texturing, and optimisation for real-time engines. This role requires both artistic excellence and technical skill to ensure that all characters meet the highest visual standards while being delivered on time. Key ResponsibilitiesHigh-Quality Characters:

• Create highly detailed, realistic 3D character models, including heads, bodies, clothing, and accessories, adhering to the project’s artistic direction and technical constraints.
• Produce both high-poly sculpts and game-ready assets with optimised topology, UVs, and textures for use in real-time engines.

Speed and Efficiency:

• Work efficiently to meet deadlines and produce high-quality characters within a fast-paced production environment.
• Maintain a consistent pipeline that allows for rapid iteration and quick adjustments based on feedback.

Material and Texture Creation:

• Develop high-quality textures and materials, using tools like Substance Painter, Designer, and Photoshop, ensuring characters look stunning in the game’s visual style.
• Collaborate with the technical art team to ensure shaders and materials are optimised for performance.

Cross-Discipline Collaboration:

• Work closely with other departments, including animators, and technical artists, to ensure character models align with both artistic vision and gameplay needs.
• Communicate regularly with art leads and other team members to provide updates on character creation progress and any potential issues.

Problem-Solving:

• Proactively solve technical and artistic challenges, ensuring that characters look great and perform well within the engine's constraints.
• Work with riggers and animators to ensure models are optimised for movement and animation.

Efficient Workflow Management:

• Manage your workload effectively, ensuring that multiple characters can be produced in parallel while maintaining a high standard of quality.
• Follow and refine character creation pipelines and workflows to streamline the production process and improve team efficiency.

Optimisation:

• Ensure all character assets are optimised for real-time rendering, adhering to technical specifications and performance requirements.

Knowledge, Skills, and Experience

• 3+ years of experience as a character artist in the video game industry, with a strong portfolio showcasing high-quality, game-ready characters and at least one released title.
• Proven ability to work quickly and efficiently without compromising on quality.
• Proficiency in 3D modelling software such as Maya, Blender, or 3ds Max.
• Strong expertise in ZBrush or similar sculpting software for creating high-poly characters.
• Extensive experience with Substance Painter/Designer, Photoshop, or equivalent texturing software.
• Solid understanding of real-time rendering pipelines, especially in game engines like Unity or Unreal Engine.
• Strong knowledge of topology, UV mapping, and asset optimisation for performance in real-time engines.
• Familiarity with rigging and skinning, ensuring characters can be animated fluidly.
• Strong communication skills and a collaborative mindset, with the ability to give and receive feedback constructively.

 Benefits of Working at Sports Interactive: A flexible working policy to best suit you and your team.  Subsidised mental health, therapy and coaching sessions are available. Contributory Pension Scheme (up to 7% of annual salary).  Free onsite evening bar in the Sports Interactive London HQ.  A well-stocked breakfast bar with cereals, fruits, teas, and coffees.  Regular events in collaboration with our partnered football clubs. ️ Access to our on-site physical and massage therapist services.  Multiple clubs and societies to join e.g., book club and art workshops.  Free access to games released under the SEGA Europe umbrella. ️ A range of Gym Membership options through our Benefits partners. ️ Fully Subsidised Healthcare and Dental Plans.  Free Travel Insurance for yourself and your family. ✈️ A personalised football shirt upon passing probation.  What is it like to work here?  We approach everything with passion, whether that is making our mark on the gaming and football industries or doing our bit for the world around us. We want to share that outlook with everyone who shows up to work here each day. For us, talent wins games, but teamwork wins titles. Collaboration is the key to constantly topping our best. We believe everyone matters, no matter which part of the business you are in, so we encourage and support our people in driving your own growth and realising your full potential. But, more than anything else, we are a team. A team with a down-to-earth dynamic, that has a lot of fun doing what we do. And whether that’s technical tweaks or fine-tuning our creative process, everything is geared at producing the best game possible for our players. To do that, we need to be tenacious and move quickly, and not be afraid of switching things up. It is these principles that have enabled us to produce a game that has defined year after year, and that will continue to push us for many more to come.Our flexible working culture gives you the opportunity to optimise your workload, with in-office, hybrid, and remote working options dependent on role. So, if you want a work/life balance, we are behind you. Because while we live to create extraordinary games, we know that is not all you have got going on. You can trust that we always keep things in perspective, fostering an environment where work can be more than just a job.We’re also a London Living Wage employer, boast one of the lowest staff turnover rates in the industry and are proud to have won the ‘Best Places to Work’ award by Gamesindustry.biz in large company category in 2023.We are proud to be an equal opportunities employer and encourage applications from any relevant candidate irrespective of sex, race, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy or maternity, religion, or belief.  SI is proudly a Disability Confident Committed employer, and we are dedicated to ensuring our recruitment process is inclusive and accessible. Our studio has disabled access and facilities but please ensure you advise us if you require any other reasonable adjustments to be made to support you during the recruitment process. Our Values: Keep collaborating: Teamwork wins titles - Here, ideas belong to everyone, whatever department you’re part of. Collaboration lets us score more as a team than we could individually. Be flexible: We think fast and adapt faster. The football and entertainment worlds never stand still, so we keep progressing and switching things up to stay ahead. Stay Tenacious: We don’t overlook the details. Everything we do is about producing the best game possible, in other words, never settle. Show Ambition: Let your drive lead the way - Your individual outlook can give everyone the edge. Make the studio’s purpose personal and let your drive lead the way. Bring the Passion: Have fun doing your thing - Don’t be fooled, what we do is not a game. Making our players’ passion come to life is our passion. Consider the Bigger Picture: Keep things in perspective - We want our impact to be a positive one. From built-in work/life balance to initiatives covering the most important topics of today, we have what matters in focus.