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3D Character Artist in Unreal

External
Hidden Acorn logoHidden Acorn · CA
ContractRemote1mo ago30+ days old, may be filled
Unreal Engine
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About the role

Hidden Acorn is a new game studio based in the San Francisco Bay Area building our first title: a competitive, PvP real-time strategy game launching across all major platforms. We're a small, ambitious team and we are looking for talented, passionate people who'll build it with us from the ground up. Hidden Acorn is looking for a talented Character Artist to help us build the roster at the heart of our RTS. Characters are the soul of this genre - players pick their favorites, study their animations, argue about their designs - and we want to make units worth that kind of attention. You'll be working closely with our Creative Director to bring heroes, units, and creatures from concept to game-ready asset in Unreal Engine 5, helping us build a visual language that's consistent, readable, and genuinely exciting to look at.

Responsibilities

  • Work with the Creative Director to create concept art and sculpt highly detailed heroes, units, and creatures that form the visual backbone of our roster
  • Sculpt high-poly characters in ZBrush: heroes, units, and creatures
  • Retopologize to clean game-res meshes with sensible polycount and edge flow for deformation
  • Texture in a PBR workflow: albedo, roughness/metallic, normals, channel-packed masks
  • Set up and maintain assets in Unreal Engine 5, including imports, LODs, and material instances, so characters are ready to drop into the game
  • Collaborate with the Creative Director on faction design, costume language, and visual hierarchy
  • Maintain consistency across a growing roster so the game's art feels cohesive as the character library expands
  • Help document new and existing asset pipeline conventions to streamline processes for artists across the team

Requirements

  • 3-5 years of character art experience with at least one shipped or near-shipped project
  • Highly skilled at sculpting, retopology, UV layout, and PBR texturing for real-time characters
  • Ability to execute a visual style consistently across a roster - hand-painted, photorealistic, or stylized
  • Working knowledge of Unreal Engine 5 at a pipeline level: importing, material setup, LOD configuration
  • Strong portfolio showing characters that read clearly at a distance; Examples in RTS, MOBA, or strategy game work are preferred
  • Rigging and/or animation experience
  • Experience designing within a faction or faction system (distinct visual languages per team/race/side)
  • Concept art skills at a thumbnail/ideation level
  • Familiarity with VAT or ISM workflows for crowd rendering

Benefits

Your work will be among the most visible things in the game. Players will spend more time looking at your characters than almost anything elseSmall, passionate team with a culture of adding new ideas. Your voice matters regardless of what role you're inRemote-friendlyCompetitive compensation based on experiencePlease email your resume and portfolio to steven@hidden-acorn.com

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