Character Artist

Coffee Stain North is seeking a Character Artist to join their team in Stockholm. The role involves maintaining and creating humanoid characters, outfits, and accessories for Goat Simulator 3, as well as developing new characters for upcoming projects. The artist will collaborate with designers and directors, focusing on visualizing ideas and ensuring models are optimal for animation and in-game implementation. This position requires strong communication and experience in game character creation.

Must Have

• 2+ years of professional experience creating characters for games
• Proficient in Autodesk Maya
• Experience with ZBrush, Marvelous Designer, or equivalent softwares
• Experienced with basic implementation for character models and textures in a game engine
• Basic understanding of version control, preferably Perforce
• Ability to visualize character ideas in 2D (concept sketches, mood boards, etc)

Good to Have

• Experience in Unreal Engine
• Character concept art skills
• Familiarity with skinning and animation pipeline
• Experience creating non-humanoid character models (creatures)
• Experience creating modular characters

Perks & Benefits

• Monday breakfast at the office
• Friday fika
• Wellness grant and paid time off for workouts
• Monthly creative Friday
• Monthly game playing sessions
• Bridge-days being paid time off
• Part of a wonderful team working on Goat Simulator franchise

Are you a Character Artist who enjoys having creative influence over your work? Do you thrive in a collaborative environment? Maybe you and us at Coffee Stain North could be a great fit!

About us

COFFEE STAIN NORTH is a small game developer based in Stockholm that belongs to the Coffee Stain Group. Since the company was founded in 2013, we have grown to 30 employees and are now open to adding a couple of new friends!

Goat Simulator 3 is a third-person sandbox adventure developed by Coffee Stain North in which the player can live out their wildest dreams... as a goat. Released in 2022, this open-world sandbox game takes the chaotic spirit of the original to new heights and offers expanded multiplayer support, a larger and more detailed environment, and even more absurd physics-driven gameplay. Players can explore the island of San Angora solo or with friends, wreaking havoc as a goat (or one of many unlockable characters) through a wide range of quests, mini-games, and bizarre encounters.

Understanding games like Goat Simulator 3 means appreciating the fine line between "broken" and "brilliant." If that sounds like your kind of energy, come and get to know our herd!

Working with us means working in a relaxed and friendly environment, where we value each other and the unique qualities we all bring to the table. Being small has its perks and one of our favorites is how we all have influence over our work/culture and the games we make.

About the role

We are looking for a character artist who loves bringing life to both old and new characters. You will be responsible for maintaining and adding to the unlucky cast of human characters in Goat Simulator 3, with a focus on new outfits and accessories.

You will also be driving the creation of new characters for upcoming projects, from ideas to finished models. By collaborating with designers and directors you will visualize your ideas and iterate based on their feedback.

More in detail you will:

• Create humanoid character models and textures (characters, clothing, accessories) based on detailed concepts or loose directives
• Develop the look for new characters through concept art, mood boards, or similar
• Collaborate with animators and tech art to make sure your models are optimal for skinning, animation and LODs
• Troubleshoot your character work together with animators and programmers to make sure the finished in-game results look as intended

Your background

To succeed in this role you need to be an excellent communicator with solid experience of creating characters for video games. These abilities will facilitate your collaboration with other developers (such as the animators that you hand over your models to) and your ability to find and amend potential issues with your implemented characters. You are able to adapt and streamline your workflow based on the needs for each project.

Role requirements

• 2+ years of professional experience creating characters for games
• Proficient in Autodesk Maya
• Experience with ZBrush, Marvelous Designer, or equivalent softwares
• Experienced with basic implementation for character models and textures in a game engine
• Basic understanding of version control, preferably Perforce
• Ability to visualize character ideas in 2D (concept sketches, mood boards, etc)

Bonus

• Experience in Unreal Engine
• Character concept art skills
• Familiarity with skinning and animation pipeline
• Experience creating non-humanoid character models (creatures)
• Experience creating modular characters

Micromanaging is not our style, so you will need to take responsibility over your own work. We want everyone to feel like they’re contributing to the end product and strive towards always becoming better at what they do.

Perks of working at Coffee Stain

We offer competitive salaries and excellent benefits that glo beyond the usual payments to your pension fund and insurances.

• We start every Monday with breakfast together at the office and have fika together on Fridays!
• We believe that a healthy body leads to a healthy mind, so on top of the wellness grant you get some paid time off to work out. Did we mention there are several gyms right beside our office?
• Once a month it’s a whole day of creative Friday which lets your inner passion blossom.
• We also have fun together and get inspired by playing games together once a month on Fridays.
• Bridge-days being paid time off.
• And, of course, you will be part of a wonderful team of colleagues working Goat Simulator franchise and what’s next!

Practical info

The position is permanent, full-time, 40 hours per week. We have a hybrid setup and offer the possibility of working from home 2 days per week. Our office is newly renovated, and located in Kungsholmen, Fridhesmplan. We have, among other things, a ping-pong table, a big lounge area where we hang out, watch movies, or play games together, and last but not least – a giant goat statue (what more do you need?).

Apart from us, the Coffee Stain Group consists of a myriad of successful studios, among them COFFEE STAIN STUDIOS (Sanctum and Satisfactory), Ghost Ship Games (Deep Rock Galactic), Tuxedo Labs (Teardown) and COFFEE STAIN PUBLISHING who work with close partners like Iron Gate (Valheim), to name a few.

Your application

If you are interested, please apply no later than the 23rd of December! The process is ongoing, and we might close the application time earlier. Our office is closed during 24th of December until 7th of January and we will not answer any questions then. Due to GDPR, we can’t accept applications through email. If you have any questions regarding the role, please reach out to Maria Sjöman, HR, maria.sjoman@coffeestain.com