Senior Character Concept Artist (Stylized Games | Character Design)

Job description

**This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Senior Character Concept Artist (Stylized Games | Character Design) based remotely in United Kingdom.** Join an international game development team and bring unforgettable characters to life through distinctive, expressive, and visually compelling designs. As a Senior Character Concept Artist, you will shape the personalities, appearances, and visual identities of characters for game development and co-development projects. You will transform creative ideas into production-ready concepts, balancing artistic originality with gameplay needs and technical requirements. From silhouettes and proportions to facial expressions, costumes, and color palettes, your work will help communicate each character’s story and personality. Working closely with Art Directors, 3D Character Artists, Animators, and Game Designers, you will contribute to a cohesive and engaging visual universe. This remote, long-term opportunity offers creative ownership, artistic collaboration, and opportunities to grow professionally. ### Accountabilities: As a Senior Character Concept Artist, you will lead the visual exploration and development of stylized characters, ensuring each design is memorable, expressive, and suitable for production. You will collaborate with multidisciplinary teams to translate artistic direction into clear concepts that support storytelling, animation, and gameplay. - Design appealing stylized characters with distinctive silhouettes, proportions, and visual identities. - Communicate character personality, emotions, background, and gameplay roles through thoughtful visual design. - Explore facial expressions, gestures, poses, costumes, accessories, and color relationships to reinforce character identity. - Ensure characters remain recognizable, engaging, and readable at different gameplay camera distances. - Balance creative stylization with coherent design principles and production requirements. - Develop thumbnails, sketches, design variations, expression sheets, and detailed character concepts. - Explore multiple creative directions before refining selected designs into polished concepts. - Prepare production-ready turnarounds, design callouts, material references, and documentation for 3D Character Artists. - Collaborate with 3D artists to ensure concepts translate effectively into game-ready character assets. - Work with Animators to support expressive movement, clear silhouettes, and compelling character performances. - Partner with Art Directors, Concept Leads, Character Artists, and Game Designers to align designs with the project's creative vision. - Incorporate feedback while preserving each character's personality and original creative intent. - Contribute ideas that strengthen character appeal, storytelling, and overall artistic quality. - Maintain a consistent visual language across diverse character rosters and help establish artistic guidelines and quality benchmarks. **Requirements:** You are an experienced character artist with a strong artistic eye, a passion for stylized design, and the ability to communicate personality and emotion through visual storytelling. You can explore creative directions independently, respond constructively to feedback, and deliver clear, production-ready concepts while collaborating effectively with a multidisciplinary team. - At least 5 years of professional experience as a Character Concept Artist or in a related game development role. - Experience contributing to commercially released game productions. - An exceptional portfolio demonstrating stylized character design, distinctive personalities, and strong visual storytelling. - Excellent understanding of anatomy, shape language, silhouettes, proportions, color theory, and costume design. - Proven ability to convey personality, emotion, background, and narrative through character design. - Strong sketching, painting, visual exploration, and iterative design skills. - Experience producing clear, detailed character concepts that can be translated into 3D assets. - Strong artistic judgment and attention to the details that enhance character appeal and recognizability. - Proficiency in Photoshop, Procreate, or equivalent professional creative software. - Ability to collaborate effectively with Art Directors and multidisciplinary production teams. - Strong communication skills and fluency in English. Additional experience that would be advantageous includes: - Designing characters with highly stylized, simplified, or pixel-inspired aesthetics. - Creating creatures, enemies, and non-human characters. - Understanding character expressions and animation-friendly design principles. - Contributing to mobile game development projects. - Using basic 3D tools for blockouts and design exploration. - Developing original character intellectual properties or contributing to established visual franchises. - Working in a game co-development environment. **Benefits:** - Fully remote working environment with an international team. - Competitive compensation. - Flexible contract options. - Full-time, long-term collaboration opportunities. - Significant creative ownership over character personality, visual appeal, and storytelling. - Close collaboration with experienced Art Directors, Character Artists, and Animators. - Opportunities to contribute to memorable game development projects. - Professional growth and long-term collaboration opportunities. - Annual team retreats and a supportive studio culture.