Overview
Craft production-ready characters that stand at the intersection of artistic excellence and technical precision. As a Technical Character Artist at Lunar Lizard, you will build realistic, animation-ready human characters that integrate seamlessly with our AI-driven animation pipeline in Unreal Engine. Working alongside ML engineers, animators, and pipeline developers, you will ensure character assets are not only visually compelling but technically sound — optimized for real-time performance, compatible with ML-generated motion, and scalable across production.
Key Responsibilities
- Create high-fidelity character assets from concept to engine-ready delivery — including sculpting, retopology, UV layout, and texturing
- Ensure characters meet animation-readiness standards: clean topology, correct edge flow, and compatibility with ML-generated skeletal animations
- Collaborate with the Technical Animation Lead and ML engineers to validate that character rigs and meshes work correctly with AI-generated motion data
- Build and maintain character asset pipelines from DCC tools (ZBrush, Maya, Substance Painter) through to Unreal Engine
- Develop reusable modular character components and LOD strategies for production scalability
- Work with the Pipeline Technical Lead to automate and streamline character export, validation, and integration workflows
- Evaluate and adopt AI-assisted tools for sculpting, texture generation, and character variation (e.g. generative texture tools, AI upscaling, procedural clothing via Marvelous Designer)
- Define quality benchmarks for character assets and contribute to shared style guides and technical specifications
- Mentor junior artists on character art best practices, technical constraints, and pipeline compliance
Required Qualifications
- 4+ years of experience as a Character Artist or Technical Character Artist in games, VFX, or animation
- Expert-level sculpting skills in ZBrush with a strong portfolio of realistic human characters
- Solid retopology skills — ability to produce clean, animation-friendly meshes from high-resolution sculpts
- Proficiency in Maya for rigging-aware modeling, UV layout, and DCC pipeline work
- Experience with Substance Painter and/or Designer for PBR texturing and material creation
- Understanding of skeletal animation constraints, blend shapes, and how mesh decisions affect downstream animation
- Familiarity with Unreal Engine character workflows (Skeletal Mesh import, LODs, materials, Nanite/Lumen considerations)
- Awareness of AI/ML generative tools for character and texture creation, with willingness to integrate them into workflows
- Fluent English for cross-functional collaboration with international team members
Essential Soft Skills
- Team player: Works fluidly across animation, ML, and pipeline teams — advocates for character quality while respecting technical constraints
- Proactive mindset: Flags potential rigging or animation compatibility issues early, before they cascade into production problems
- Motivation to grow: Genuinely curious about AI-assisted character creation and eager to push realism with novel tools
- User-centric thinking: Produces assets that are clean, well-documented, and easy for downstream teams to work with
- Strong communicator: Can articulate technical character requirements to both engineers and artists clearly
- Iterative problem solver: Comfortable refining assets through feedback cycles with ML systems and creative directors alike
- Office presence: Available on-site in Sofia for collaborative reviews, character direction sessions, and hands-on pipeline troubleshooting