Lead Artist

FuturLab is looking to hire an experienced Lead Artist generalist who is keen to build beautiful, stylized and unique worlds while nurturing and leading the art team with knowledge using the Unity Engine.

Working with the project’s Game Director, Lead Programmer and Producer, you will lead the art team on a new and exciting IP, taking responsibility for ensuring our lovely, warm and soothing game has a unique style and is polished to a high quality.

Lead duties will include problem solving, scoping art tasks and assigning them to the team, discussing implementation with the code team, monitoring progress, delivering timely feedback and providing time estimates whilst working alongside the Producer and Game Director to plan production. You will also need to identify any art resources needed and be involved in the recruitment process where necessary.

You need to be happy turning your hand to a wide range of 3D game art production skills, from modelling, texturing, VFX, to lighting, shaders and look dev using Unity and Blender.

FuturLab are in the unique position of having complete creative and financial control of our own IP. This position is ideal for someone who is keen to have their ideas listened to and will enjoy seeing their own work highly visible within a finished product. It is important that you are proactive, positive and care about creating high quality and fun experiences as well as ensuring your team are well looked after.

Job Description

• Responsible for ensuring that both yourself and your team create artwork that reaches our style and quality targets in a cost effective and timely manner.
• Report to and act on direction and feedback from the Game Director.

• Ensure that the art team are working to the design, artistic and tonal vision provided while understanding the intent of the game design and player experience, with the ability to effectively communicate and guide artists in how to achieve the required results.
• Provide regular feedback and reviews in a clear and constructive way, ensuring that artwork is of a high quality and delivered on time.
• When directed to do so by the Game Director or Producer, handle the directing and creation of concepts from the concept art team and handle the translation to in-game assets.
• Work with other departments to develop effective content pipelines and ensure they’re adhered to within your team.
• Mentor less experienced artists, having regular 121s and helping to develop their skills, while managing outsourcing where required.
• Work with the Game Director to ensure that 3D Assets, VFX, Animation and Concepts adhere to our art direction and tone as we expand into broader content and settings.
• Work with the Producer to track progress and schedule art tasks.
• Maintain efficient 3D/VFX/Animation asset creation workflows, optimised for target platforms in both quality and performance.
• Ability to troubleshoot and diagnose visual/performance issues in Unity.

• Served as a lead artist in a previous role.
• Good team management skills, particularly in the context of rolling content deadlines for live content.

• Strong experience using Unity and Git.
• At least 8 years industry experience.
• Strong artistic fundamentals, with the ability to effectively communicate critique and artistic intent to others.
• Comfortable with common Game Art tools such as 3DS Max/Blender, Substance Designer/Painter, Zbrush and Photoshop.
• Lighting, shader, and scene setup knowledge.
• Ability to effectively itemise tasks and assign realistic time scales to them.
• Able to take responsibility for delivering the art for the game from both an artistic, organizational and optimization standpoint.
• Ability to inspire, support and guide the art team to produce their best work.
• Strong communication skills with a friendly, helpful, and positive demeanour.

• Competitive salary (dependent on experience)
• Performance related bonus.
• Bi-annual salary reviews based on your performance.
• Monday to Friday 9am - 5pm (No weekends, No overtime, No Crunch!)
• Opportunity to work from home (UK only), out of our Brighton office, or hybrid.
• 21 days annual leave + 9 Bank Holidays, which includes our very own FuturLab Bank Holiday!
• 2 Duvet Days. (No questions asked)
• Extra day off for your birthday.
• Studio closure over the Christmas period.
• 5 paid training and 2 paid volunteer days per year to work on your personal development.
• Opportunities to attend and speak at gaming events/conferences.
• Free MS Game Pass or PS+ subscription
• Free game codes, game swag and merchandise.
• Bike2work scheme.
• Enhanced Maternity - 9 months full pay (statutory benefit topped up by FL)
• Paternity leave - 8 weeks full pay
• Enhanced Sick Pay.
• Enhanced Pension.
• Private Healthcare, includes dental and optical cover.
• Remote therapy service through Spill -8 x 50-minute virtual sessions over 6 months whenever you need them. Unlimited ‘ask a therapist’ text questions.
• Eye tests & standard glasses for display work.
• Amazing offices with a great culture. E.g. Regular social activities, Free fresh fruit, Free iced treats in the Summer and Free locally roasted, Small Batch Coffee and Speciality Teas!

FuturLab foster an inclusive and welcoming culture, check out the Life at FuturLab page (www.futurlab.co.uk/life-at-futurlab) for reasons why you’d love working here! 

If you have the skills, experience and passion for the role then please get in touch as we’d love to hear from you!  

To apply, click here:Lead Artist (UK only - Remote/Hybrid/Brighton) - FuturLab Ltd and attach your latest CV and cover letter/portfolio link.

Equal Opportunities
We welcome applicants from all backgrounds and are committed to making reasonable adjustments to the recruitment process as required, please add any adjustment requests to your application.

Candidates without a valid UK work Visa cannot be considered.