Character Artist

This is an exciting contract opportunity to help create the characters, costumes and cosmetic content for a charming, stylised mobile game. You'll play a key role in bringing a vibrant game world to life, creating memorable characters that are full of personality while ensuring assets are optimised for mobile performance and production pipelines.

About the role

You will be responsible for creating high‑quality stylised characters, outfits and cosmetic assets that align with an established visual direction. Working closely with the art team, you'll design and build expressive game‑ready assets for a wide variety of inhabitants, including villagers, NPCs, avatar customisation items and cosmetic variations.

This role combines artistic creativity with technical execution, requiring a strong understanding of stylised art, mobile optimisation and modular asset creation.

What you'll be doing

• Create stylised 3D characters that fit seamlessly within an established visual style
• Model and texture villagers, NPCs, avatar costumes and cosmetic items
• Produce hand‑painted textures with strong colour, material definition and readability
• Develop modular character assets and cosmetic variations that support customisation systems
• Create clean, efficient low‑poly models optimised for mobile platforms
• Sculpt stylised organic forms including hair, clothing and character features
• Prepare UV layouts and optimise assets for implementation within the game engine
• Collaborate closely with artists, designers and production teams to maintain visual consistency
• Iterate on assets based on feedback while maintaining quality and production efficiency
• Deliver game‑ready assets that meet artistic, technical and performance requirements

What we're looking for

Experience

• Professional experience as a Character Artist within games
• Experience creating stylised characters for mobile, casual or family‑friendly titles
• Experience working within established art styles and visual pipelines
• Experience delivering game‑ready assets from concept through final implementation

Skills

• Strong stylised character modelling skills with excellent appeal and personality
• Expertise in hand‑painted texturing techniques
• Low‑poly modelling and topology optimisation for mobile platforms
• Experience creating modular cosmetic systems and character variations
• Strong UV mapping and asset optimisation skills
• Excellent understanding of shape language, silhouette and visual readability
• Experience sculpting stylised organic forms, including hair and clothing
• Strong drawing and visual development fundamentals
• Ability to interpret concepts and iterate effectively based on feedback
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills

Nice to have

• Experience with Maya
• Experience working in Unity
• Previous experience on mobile games
• UK‑based location

Working style / behaviours

• Collaborative and feedback‑driven
• Passionate about stylised art and character design
• Strong attention to detail while maintaining production efficiency
• Comfortable working remotely within an established pipeline
• Proactive and able to take ownership of deliverables

Why join

• Work on a charming, character‑driven mobile title
• Opportunity to create a wide variety of stylised characters and cosmetics
• Flexible remote or hybrid working options
• Collaborative and creative art team environment
• High impact role helping define the personality and charm of the game world

Location: Fully Remote
Employment type: Freelance / Contract
Duration: 6 months

If you're a talented Character Artist who loves creating expressive stylised characters and polished mobile‑ready assets, we'd love to hear from you. Apply now or email Joe McKernan - jm@skillsearch.com

Years of experience and salary levels are shown purely as a guide. We will only consider applications from candidates that can demonstrate the skills or experience required for the role.

Please be aware that while we would love to respond to every application we receive, due to high numbers we cannot guarantee this. We do however appreciate any time you invest into the application and will make sure to get in touch should anything in future more closely fit your skillset.