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Lead Artist, VFX
Blizzard Entertainment
Irvine, CA, United States
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Starcraft, Diablo, Warcraft, Overwatch, and Hearthstone - Which is your favorite Blizzard universe? Having a hard time choosing? You don't have to!
Blizzard seeks a Hero who will lead a talented team of FX artists to champion ideas from concept to completion. You have a passion for games and enjoy the challenge of guiding the execution of beautiful natural, sci-fi, and fantastical FX that are highly functional and serve the needs of the gameplay. Our ideal Lead FX artist candidate has the strong interpersonal and collaboration skills to communicate clear vision and priorities and also enjoys creating FX themselves.
As the Lead FX artist on the Heroes of the Storm team, you will have the unique opportunity to guide and create FX for characters from the entire catalogue of iconic Blizzard franchises. You will contribute your own ideas and craft to enrich both our game and universes. From crazy arcane fireballs to insane plasma beams, bring your creativity to the Nexus!
Sound fun? If you are up to the challenge, we want to hear from you!
Responsibilities
• Champion the vision and quality bar for the FX team
• Communicate feedback in a clear, effective, collaborative, and timely manner
• Collaborate with the design and other art departments to deliver heroes, skins, maps, mounts, and other supporting assets that meet the highest visual quality and gameplay standards
• Collaborate with our engineering and tech art groups to evolve our pipelines, tools, and technology.
• Partner with production to ensure schedule and plans meet business and project needs
• Understand, maintain, explore, and enhance our visual style guide
• Create FX for characters, mounts and other assets
Requirements
• A minimum of 5+ years’ experience in AAA game development as an FX artist and 2+ years’ experience in a leadership role
• Self-driven, passionate, creative problem solver with a great team first attitude
• Extensive experience executing a cohesive visual style
• Proven track record of delivering clear and consistent visual feedback that elevates the FX team’s work
• A desire to work closely with game design to ensure the game's FX improve the player experience
• A deep understanding of the unique visual styles that bring Blizzard’s game universes to life. Can effectively coach others to create appropriate FX using paint-overs and other look-development tools
• Experience developing FX pipelines
• Understanding of Blizzard Entertainment’s visual style, and the desire to push it to the next level
• A passion for video games
• Strong working knowledge of 3ds Max, Maya, or equivalent 3D programs
• Strong Photoshop skills for creating effect textures for use with particle systems / animated geometry
• Experience with the creation of next-gen shaders and materials
• Familiar with the MOBA genre
Pluses
• Modeling and texturing experience with props and/or characters
• Animation experience
• Previously shipped a AAA PC or console title
• Experience with MaxScript, Mel, or Python
Submission / Portfolio requirements
• Resume
• Cover Letter** which should include:
◦ Why you are interested in working at Blizzard
◦ What games you are currently playing
• Portfolio and/or reel demonstrating relevant artistic skills
◦ Only online artwork submissions will be accepted (e.g. website, blog, or online album)
• Willing to complete an art test if requested to do so
**Only submittals with Cover Letters will be considered.