Senior Character Artist - Realistic Heads

Lakshya, a Keywords Studios company, in India is headquartered in Gurgaon and has a team of over 700 employees spread across studio facilities in Gurgaon, Pune and Seattle, and sales offices in San Diego and Tokyo. Setup in 2004, Lakshya has, over the last 20 years, created a reputation in the game development industry for being a highly talented and dependable game art studio. During this time, Lakshya has created art for over a hundred game titles, including hugely successful global hits such as Bloodborne, Dark Souls II, Just Cause 3, WWE 2K16, Uncharted 2, Farmville and Cityville. Lakshya’s senior team, which comprises of top-notch International and Indian talent, has a huge amount of experience of creating art for different game platforms and genres. Lakshya blends artistic creativity with strong process orientation in order to deliver best in class services. Lakshya works closely with NASSCOM to help in the growth of the game development eco-system in India.

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About the Role:

We are seeking a highly skilled Senior Head Likeness Artist who can create ultra-realistic human head models with precise likeness. This is a hands-on production role, requiring strong artistic fundamentals, deep anatomical knowledge, and strong technical understanding of modern texturing and hair workflows.

Requirements

Required Skills & Qualifications

• Excellent understanding of human anatomy, especially facial structure, proportions, and muscle groups.
• Proven ability to match realistic or stylized head likeness with high accuracy.
• Strong experience using Texture XYZ maps and scan-based workflows.
• Good understanding of hair cards creation and placement for real-time characters.
• Expertise with ZBrush for sculpting.
• Strong knowledge of Substance Painter, Mari, and Photoshop for texturing.
• Experience working with 3D scan clean-up and photogrammetry.
• Understanding of PBR workflows and map baking pipelines.
• Experience with real-time engines (Unreal/Unity).
• Strong attention to detail and passion for realism.
• Ability to take feedback and iterate quickly.

Key Responsibilities

• Create high-quality 3D human head models with accurate likeness using reference images or scan data.
• Sculpt detailed facial forms based on strong understanding of human anatomy, bone landmarks, and skin surface structure.
• Use Texture XYZ maps and high-end texturing workflows to produce realistic skin textures.
• Work with scan heads, photogrammetry data, and refine them into clean production-ready meshes.
• Bake clean, production-quality maps (Normal, AO, Curvature, Cavity, etc.) for real-time engines.
• Perform hair cards placement for realistic head grooming, ensuring proper flow, breakup, and density.
• Collaborate with modelling, rigging, texturing, grooming, and animation teams to ensure smooth integration of assets.
• Optimize assets for real-time engines (Unreal Engine, Unity) without losing quality.
• Maintain high artistic standards and meet production deadlines.

Preferred Skills (Bonus)

• Experience in AAA game development.
• Knowledge of blendshapes and facial rigging basics.
• Familiarity with grooming tools (XGen, Ornatrix) is a plus.

Benefits

• We offer the opportunity to work on some of the best-known game titles in the world.
• We offer competitive salaries and annual performance-based bonuses.
• Experienced artists may get the opportunity to work remotely.
• We offer generous paid time off. You get 26 Annual leaves and additional paid time off at the year-end (from 25th December to 1st January).
• We cover Term Insurance and Personal accidental insurance for you.
• Benefit from our free Employee Assistance Program (EAP) for mental and emotional wellbeing.
• You can also avail our Special Education Assistance Scheme to further develop your career.
• … And a lot more!

Role Information: EN
Studio: Lakshya
Location: Asia Pacific, India, Haryana
Area of Work: Art Services
Service: Create
Employment Type: Full Time/Contract
Working Pattern: Hybrid