Lead Concept Artist

Onward Play is seeking a LEAD CONCEPT ARTIST to join a leading mobile game studio! As the Lead Concept Artist for our game studio, you will be responsible for leading a team of artists in the creation of visual concepts for our games. You will work closely with the game design team to understand the game's story, characters, and world, and translate these ideas into visual concepts that will guide the game's art direction. You will be responsible for overseeing the development of all concept art, ensuring that it meets the quality standards of the studio and aligns with the game's overall vision.

MAIN RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Lead and manage a team of concept artists, providing feedback and guidance to help them improve their work.
• Work closely with the game design team to understand the game's story, characters, and world, and translate these ideas into visual concepts.
• Create concept art for characters, environments, vehicles, weapons, and other game assets.
• Ensure that all concept art aligns with the game's overall vision and meets the quality standards of the studio.
• Collaborate with other members of the art team, including 3D artists, animators, and visual effects artists, to ensure that the game's art style is consistent.
• Communicate with other departments, such as game design and engineering, to ensure that concept art is feasible and achievable within the game's technical constraints.
• Stay up to date with industry trends and best practices in concept art and visual design.
• Leading, managing and developing a small team of dedicated concept artists
• Maintaining and Contributing to a healthy and happy team environment
• Providing mentorship to team members

• 5 years of experience as a concept artist, with 2 years of experience leading others — please include your portfolio with relevant industry/personal work.
• Focus on realism, not stylized or cartoonish
• Excellent eye for composition, color theory, design
• Strong rendering skills, and ability to adapt to different art styles
• Photoreal and Hyperreal painting and rendering skills highly valued for this role
• Flexible mastery of art for different subject matter (Characters, Environments, Props, UI) highly valued for this role
• Strong ability to render identifiable human likenesses (ie brand-specific actors and characters)
• Ability to visualize ideas from others quickly and clearly during conceptual phases in storyboards/mockups
• Ability to quickly identify problems and suggest solutions in pitches, art reviews and impromptu conversations
• Ability to give precise and timely feedback to artists of different levels, and to gauge level of support needed according to their skills
• Strong organizational skills, and ability to keep pace with management and production resources, tracking and documentation
• Ability to create and maintain effective process documentation
• Ability to smoothly and optimally train others in your craft and processes
• A capacity to come up with unique and creative ideas in your work
• BFA or equivalent degree
• Knowledge of Adobe Suite
• Photoshop
• UI design experience
• Previous experience working with IP/likenesses
• Previous experience working in Fantasy genres, a plus
• 3D texture painting
• Interest in puzzle genre of mobile games
• Interest in RPG genre of mobile games
• The ability to integrate basic art into Unity, a plus
• Knowledge of Maya, a plus
• Understanding of animation principles and aesthetics of Mobile Games, a plus