Lead Concept Artist (Retro Studios)
Description
Retro Studios
Founded in 1998, Retro Studios is a wholly owned subsidiary of Nintendo Company, Ltd. Retro is a state-of-the-art game development studio, working in conjunction with Nintendo to bring award-winning games to Nintendo's cutting-edge next-generation platforms. Retro Studios is located in beautiful Austin, Texas. With rolling hills, scenic waterways, abundant wildlife, vibrant music and film scenes, and a laid-back cosmopolitan culture, Austin is a dynamic city with an excellent quality of life. Austin's sunny weather also supports a great range of outdoor activities, providing plenty of venues for top-notch game developers to recharge and unwind.
Announced by Nintendo in January 2019, Retro Studios is currently in the midst of developing Metroid Prime 4 for the Nintendo Switch.
DESCRIPTION OF DUTIES
- Collaborates with the Art Director, Artists, and Designers to define the look of our projects by working to establish a consistent visual direction for characters, environments, props, effects and mood using all art tools available.
- Adopts a broad range of styles from realistic to highly stylized based on goals and direction for a given project to produce concept art with an appropriate sense of color, drama, shape language, personality, and design.
- Takes ownership of concept work for various characters, environments, and props while actively collaborating with other disciplines such as Design, Art, and Engineering in order to achieve high-quality, innovative concept art
- Creates character, environment, and prop concept art in the form of thumbnails, sketches, breakdowns, reference sheets, paintings, and other digital imagery
- Designs visually cohesive fictional worlds and characters
- Provides technical and aesthetic breakdowns of concept art to support art, design and engineering efforts
- Generates visual contextualization support for gameplay design efforts at all stages
- Works with Art Director, and Leads to provide feedback and guidance to Artists
- Creates storyboards, background illustrations, and promotional artwork
- Provides and receives feedback professionally
- Identifies and implements best practices, workflows and pipelines that pushes the quality bar for concept art.
- Communicates directly with Producers to coordinate Concept Art resources for both internal and external artists, establishing schedules, tracking task and priorities.
- Handles performance evaluations, bonus reviews, and any necessary disciplinary plans for direct reports
- Responsible for having 1-1 meetings to understand career goals for individuals in group
*This job description outlines primary duties and requirements and is not intended to identify all tasks that may be performed; individuals occupying the position may be required to perform other duties. The company may modify job duties from time to time, either in practice or in writing.
SUMMARY OF REQUIREMENTS
- Has eight or more years' industry experience as a concept artist, including at least two complete product cycles
- Excellent 2D drawing skills with a strong grasp of composition, color theory, perspective, lighting, environment, and architecture
- Mastery of fundamental artistic principles
- Online portfolio with high-quality examples of character and environment concept art
- Experience executing a wide range of artistic styles
- Demonstrated ability to develop visual representations of abstract ideas
- 3D art skills, including modeling, sculpting, material creation and lighting is a big plus
- Experience with Shotgrid, Jira or other task tracking software is a big plus.
- Good communicator, self-motivated, driven to grow professionally
- Undergraduate degree in art-related subject, completion of an intensive art training program, or equivalent experience
Retro Studios is an equal opportunity employer. We offer a welcoming and inclusive environment in service to one another, our products, the diverse consumers we represent, and the communities we call home. We do all of this with kindness, empathy and respect for each other.
This Job is no longer active!