Lead Character Concept Artist

About One Man Studio
We make videogames. We partner with major AAA teams to help translate artistic vision into shipped games.

The Role
Create compelling character concepts that define heroes, NPCs, enemies, creatures, costumes, and the visual identity of the cast. You’ll work closely with Art Direction, Character Art, Animation, Rigging, Narrative, and other disciplines to develop concepts that are not only distinctive, but clear, usable, and grounded in production needs.

This is a lead role for someone who can take broad direction, establish strong character language, explore visual solutions, and guide characters from early ideation through production handoff. You’ll help set the standard for how characters look, read, and get built — while remaining a working artist.

What You’ll Do

• Character concept creation: Design heroes, supporting cast, enemies, creatures, costumes, gear, and character-defining props that support the game’s artistic direction.
• Character language: Establish silhouette, anatomy, proportion, costume construction, material palettes, faction motifs, and visual personality.
• Narrative & gameplay support: Create concepts that reflect story, role, and gameplay intent, including how a character reads in motion, at a distance, and in combat or cinematic contexts.
• Production handoff: Provide turnarounds, expression studies, material and costume callouts, paintovers, and clear visual guidance for Character Artists, Rigging, and other production teams.
• Visual development: Explore posing, expression, costume variation, wear, and material behavior to define the tone and identity of key characters.
• Cross-discipline collaboration: Work with Art Direction, Character Art, Animation, Rigging, Tech Art, Narrative, Gameplay, and VFX to solve visual and production challenges.
• Iteration: Respond well to feedback, explore alternatives quickly, and keep concepts aligned with creative and technical constraints.
• Visual consistency: Help maintain style, scale, anatomy logic, and costume language across characters, factions, and asset families.
• Leadership & mentorship: Guide character visual direction, give thoughtful feedback, review work from other artists, and support less-experienced concept and character artists.

Requirements

• 7+ years as a Concept Artist with strong specialization in character concept art, or 5+ years with demonstrated lead ownership on a shipped character roster.
• At least one shipped AA/AAA title or equivalent large-scale game project.
• Strong portfolio showing high-quality characters, costume design, anatomy, silhouette, expression, material definition, and visual storytelling.
• Excellent understanding of anatomy, proportion, costume construction, materials and fabrics, color, and character personality.
• Comfortable creating both polished key art and practical production concepts.
• Strong ability to communicate ideas clearly through sketches, turnarounds, expression sheets, paintovers, callouts, and breakdowns.
• Confident working from feedback and collaborating with multiple disciplines.
• Experience mentoring artists, leading visual reviews, and helping set quality standards across a character pipeline.
• Strong digital painting skills using industry-standard tools such as Photoshop, Procreate, or equivalent.
• Familiarity with 3D blockouts, sculpt paintovers, or kitbashing workflows to support believable characters and production accuracy.

Nice to Have

• Experience owning character visual language across a large cast, faction set, or multi-character pipeline.
• Experience working on narrative, cinematic, or highly character-driven games.
• Familiarity with game production pipelines, real-time constraints, and character production budgets.
• Experience creating concepts from narrative briefs, gameplay kits, or animation and rigging constraints.
• Ability to support style guides, character bibles, mood boards, visual targets, and character briefs.
• 3D workflow knowledge using Blender, ZBrush, Unreal, Maya, or similar tools.

Portfolio
Show character-focused concept work with succinct breakdowns: early silhouettes and thumbnails, costume and material studies, expression and posing exploration, turnarounds, production callouts, sculpt paintovers, and final concepts. Include heroes, supporting cast, and costume or creature work if you have it. We want to see how you think, not just the finished image.

What Success Looks Like

• Concepts clearly guide production and reduce ambiguity for the 3D character team.
• Characters feel coherent, memorable, and aligned with the game’s visual direction.
• Character designs support both storytelling and gameplay readability.
• Production teams can use your work without guesswork — turnarounds, callouts, and material notes are production-ready.
• You help raise the visual quality and consistency of the cast, and other artists can follow the character language you set.