Lead Character Artist at Certain Affinity
Company: Certain Affinity
Location: Austin, TX, USA
Job Type: Contract (6 Months)
Salary: Not Disclosed
About the Role
Certain Affinity is seeking an experienced Lead Character Artist for a 6-month contract opportunity focused on elevating and modernizing character visuals for a large-scale live AAA game title. This hands-on leadership role involves improving existing character assets to current-generation quality standards while maintaining performance targets, established pipelines, and production requirements.
The ideal candidate will combine strong artistic direction with practical production experience, collaborating closely with art, design, and technical teams to drive visual excellence across the project.
Job Overview
- Lead character art quality improvements across a live AAA production
- Modernize existing character assets for current-generation visuals
- Collaborate with internal teams and external development partners
- Support scalable production pipelines and workflow optimization
- Ensure assets meet technical, animation, and engine requirements
Responsibilities
- Drive visual quality and consistency across all character assets and upgrades
- Define, document, and maintain character art standards throughout production
- Create high-quality character assets while leading by example
- Provide artistic and technical feedback to both internal artists and external vendors
- Establish and improve character art workflows and scalable production pipelines
- Work closely with technical teams to ensure assets meet engine performance requirements
- Participate in presentations, reviews, and cross-discipline collaboration sessions
- Create visual targets, documentation, and reference materials for production alignment
- Evaluate and integrate MetaHuman-based workflows where appropriate
Qualifications
- 10+ years of experience in game development
- 3+ years of experience in a Lead Character Artist role
- Experience shipping multiple AAA game titles
- Strong expertise in character production pipelines, including modeling, optimization, and materials
- Advanced knowledge of anatomy, facial anatomy, deformation, and FACS blend shapes
- Expert-level proficiency with ZBrush, Maya, 3ds Max, or equivalent tools
- Experience with modern texturing workflows using Substance Painter, Quixel, or similar software
- Experience working with Unreal Engine or other real-time game engines
- Ability to balance visual quality with technical budgets and production timelines
- Strong communication and leadership skills across multidisciplinary teams
- Portfolio demonstrating realistic, high-quality character art
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience with MetaHuman workflows and production integration
- Experience upgrading or remastering legacy character assets
- Knowledge of scan data and photorealistic character pipelines
- Experience working on live-service game titles
- Understanding of motion and animation-informed character design