We're Looking for a Lead Artist

We've created a 3D virtual world for education. We're in beta, the first users are using it. And now we need somebody to take the art to the next level.  

We are looking for a Lead Artist. The ideal candidate is able to participate in talks on a feature level and takes ownership in ensuring the necessary art assets arrive in-game. 

The art style we're aiming for is between the lines of: Firewatch / TF2 / The Witness. But of course new talent, new influence. 

The lowdown:

• Being responsible for the overall look of a game
• Devising the game’s visual style and directing the production of all visual material throughout the game’s development
• Future management of the art and animation team

What will you have to do ?

You will be responsible for the overall look of the game, the visual style and you direct the production of all visual material throughout the game’s development.

You'll produce much of the initial artwork yourself, setting creative and technical standards and determining the best tools and techniques to use. This one is really important at the moment, we have the basics already but they can use a coherency touch. I expect that we'll grow and you'll have more people to help you out, but we're still pretty small and you'll have to do alot yourself at first.

But once budget allows us, In conjunction with the Producer (me), we will put together and manage a team of Artists and Animators who will help you produce most of the art assets for the game (including environments, characters, objects and effects) under your direction.

The Lead Artist must ensure that the art and animation team works to schedule and within budget. They also work closely with the programming team to make sure that all art and animation assets produced can be easily imported into Unity3D.

The styling is often communicated through concept art. You will create material which illustrates the visual atmosphere and graphical design for the game.

I can help on that but you'll have to do your part of research and testing out different modelling, texturing, animation, rendering and lighting techniques and tools appropriate to the games technology, with input from the Lead Programmer (Dmitrii!).

You'll supervise the team’s output from a creative and technical point of view, and also ensure that the work gets done according to budget and schedule, alongside the game’s producer, anticipating problems and planning for any contingencies. 

O and have a passion for games and a good understanding of what makes a game visually appealing and fun to play

The technologies we've been using untill now are: 

• Unity 3D (that's not going to change anytime soon)
• Maya LT / Blender / Mixamo / Unity asset store / Tenkoku Dynamic Sky / Gaia / ..

I'm aware finding somebody with this entire skill set on the budget we're at might be challenging. That's why I underline the ownership & believer factor. No we wont be able to do AAA quality but the unity asset store is full of stuff that could work with a little bit of refactoring. There are also good outsourcing contractors out there and we're willing to make some budget available to work with them. But somebody has to put it all together and put his stamp on it and make it awesome.  

So what's in for you

We are a small startup. So budget is low. That being said if you're willing to work on a reasonable rate on a f.e 20 hours / week agreement it doesn't mean it has to be unpaid. There's also equity available if that is your thing. 

Friends & Family have been funding us already and soon we'll see if we can find some extra friends. In about 3 months we plan to do a crowdfunding. Who-ever the new Lead Artist will be will play an important role in this. Most of this project has been done next to the day job. My co-founder Gabe and myself have been at this since April 2013, when we met online through oDesk. During the past 2 years we've had so much support from friends who happen to be artists / developers / teachers / consultant / advisors helping in several ways to get where we are. Thank you, you know who you are :) 

Now we managed to get into beta and have a proper MVP and things are ramping up. We've hired a part-time developer. Just recently our off-shore Q&A department for basic testing was launched. We have good partnerships for near shoring game outsourcing when we need the extra power. We have organised ourselves to support our users as best as possible through Zendesk. We're actively blogging and creating a community. 

The scene is set, the world awaits, enter Lead Artist. 

You can contact me by dropping an email at cederik[at]edorble.com or tweet at @chaverbeke. 

If you have any other questions / remarks feel free to give us a tweet / comment below 

More motivated then ever,  

Cederik

P.S: I borrowed parts of the description of the good people at creativeskillset.org