A global art studio supplying character and environment work to AAA and AA game publishers is building out its hair and grooming discipline, and needs someone to run it. Grooming — believable, game-ready hair, fur, and similar detail — is a specialist corner of character art with its own quality bar and its own headaches. This role is for someone who's spent real time in that corner: comfortable owning the standard the team works to, unblocking artists when a groom isn't behaving, and still willing to open the software and fix it themselves rather than only pointing the way.

General Information

• Sector: outsourced character art for premium video game titles

• Contract: full-time, permanent

• Location: fully remote

• English: upper-intermediate or above, spoken and written

Tasks and Deliverables

• Stand up and run a dedicated hair/grooming capability within the character art group, shaping how the discipline works day to day

• Set and hold the artistic and technical bar for grooming work delivered across projects

• Coach artists through creative and technical snags, and give feedback that's specific enough to actually act on

• Plan and allocate the team's time across live projects and individual tasks

• Write the reference material and technical guidance the team builds against

• Sit in on interviews as a technical assessor when the studio is hiring into the discipline

• Help scope and estimate new projects, including test/trial pieces

• Keep a hand in the actual work — modelling, UV layout, and texture/texel-density work on character assets as required

• Contribute to the team's showcase portfolio

Required Experience

• A track record leading (as Project Lead, Team Lead, or similar) a grooming-focused team within game development, not just doing grooming work solo

• Comfortable being the one who signs off on quality, against both artistic taste and technical constraint

• Genuinely good at mentoring — resolving the artistic and technical problems a team runs into, and coaching without micro-managing

• Sharp visual judgement and a low tolerance for work that doesn't meet the bar

• Up to date on how the pipelines, tools, and trends in this space are actually being used right now

• Full-cycle character skill set: high-poly sculpting (ZBrush), SubD modelling (3ds Max/Maya), animation-ready topology, cloth work (Marvelous Designer), solid anatomy, UVlayout, texture baking, and texturing (Substance Painter)

• Upper-intermediate-plus written and spoken English

Nice to Have

• Experience inside a game engine (Unreal or Unity)

• Creature work alongside human/humanoid character work

• A working understanding of rigging and animation pipelines

• Strong fundamentals as a draughts person

How to Apply

To apply, please send your CV and a portfolio that puts hair/grooming work front and centre, alongside anything that shows you've led or mentored a team rather than only produced work individually.