Senior 2D Character Artist
Vancouver
Art – Currently Hiring /
Regular Full-time (RFT) /
On-site
At Kabam, we’re constantly raising the bar of excellence in free-to-play gaming. We hire for passion and diversity so that we can triumph in our collective skill. Our teams are made up of a fusion of personalities and interests bound together by a collaborative nature, fun-loving culture, and a drive to do what it takes to make great games. And this is where you come in…
The primary role of a Senior 2D Character Artist is to expertly create characters at the quality level set by the Lead Character Artist. As a senior in this field, they possess an exceptional level of artistic skill and experience. They are a big part of pushing the boundaries of character visuals, ensuring that each character fits seamlessly within the game's art style and narrative. With their deep understanding of anatomy, form, and aesthetics, Senior Character artists are instrumental in crafting characters that resonate with players and enhance the overall gaming experience. The Lead Artist can rely on you to help support the other character artists including external vendors.
This role is a full-time, on-site position based 5 days a week at our Downtown Vancouver studio.
In this role, you can expect to be involved in:
- Conceptualization:
- Collaborate closely with the game's Concept Artists, Animators and Art Director to research reference material and translate 2D character designs and ideas into highly detailed 3D models.
- 2D Motion Concept Art:
- Describe character movement, animation and personality through sketches.
- Define key poses or frames for character animation and VFX before handing off to animators.
- Iteration and Polish:
- Refine and iterate characters artistic and technical quality at every stage of the creation based on feedback from the team.
- Playtest to review characters in the engine to achieve the desired visual quality and gameplay outcomes.
- Collaboration:
- Working collaboratively with other members of the game development team, including concept artists, animators, FX artists, game designers, and programmers, to ensure the characters fit well within the game's overall design and mechanics.
- Supporting the teams in implementing the overall vision for the game
- Outsourcing:
- Monitor the quality of work from outsource animators and artists and provide feedback.
To be successful in this role, your background includes:
- Post-Secondary education in related field
- A portfolio demonstrating excellent skills in character creation with a focus on stylized art.
- Experience with 2D art (illustration, painting, sketching).
- 5+ years of game development experience as a character artist.
- Proficient in Unity
- Strong ability to create organic and hard surfaces for characters such as anatomy, armor and cloth.
- Strong knowledge of how to integrate assets into a game engine - including optimization techniques
- Excellent communication, time management, and organizational skills
- Self motivated and directed with a strong passion for your craft
- Strong passion for gaming, especially in the mobile space.
Our success is due to the hard work of our people. We share our success with our people through flexible benefits and reward programs, sweet swag, snacks, and more. Here’s a look at some of the support we provide our people:
- Extended Health Coverage: effective day one, no waiting period! Our benefits cover health, dental, life, disability, and extended paramedical services such as vision care, mental health practitioners, massage, physiotherapy, acupuncture, and much more.
- DEIB Benefits: DEIB is important to us and to our people - that’s why our benefits include gender-affirming care, fertility care, and other hormonal treatments and drugs.
- Flexible Spending Accounts: our benefits are built on a flex credit model, so you’re able to choose the coverage levels that are right for you, and allocate the rest to a group RRSP/TFSA, Health Spending account, and/or Personal Spending Account.
- RRSP Matching: everyone retires eventually, and we help our people save for their futures with a contribution matching program once you reach 90 days with us.
- PTO and Parental Leave: we offer paid parental leave, flexible paid time off, paid time off for volunteering, sick leave, and holiday closures.
- Employee and Family Assistance Program: this program provides crisis management support, immediate mental health care, and generalized support for emotional, mental, and financial well-being.
- Telus Virtual Health: we provide increased access to remote healthcare providers for prescription refills or referrals from the comfort of your home.
- Learning and growth: We encourage people to grow both personally and professionally, and support this through regular lunch & learns and an education stipend.
- Pay transparency: We share with employees the pay range their role falls within and clear career maps to determine how they can grow within their role or level-up to a promotion.
- Cool spaces: Our offices are in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Vancouver, Montreal, Prince Edward Island, and Seoul. Whether it’s summers on the rooftop patio in Downtown Vancouver, watching the fireworks in Montreal’s South Shore, or trying local eats in Downtown Charlottetown - we want our people to feel like their time spent in office is worthwhile!
- Giving back: Our ‘Agents of Change’ initiative is how we support the communities close to our heart, and we have several events and fundraisers every year that Agents of Change organize.
- Hybrid Work: We aim to provide flexible arrangements that suit all work styles. All teams at Kabam are hybrid work environments, with a minimum of 2 days in-office to foster team collaboration and bonding. Full-remote options are also available for certain positions within Kabam.
$98,400 - $123,000 a year
The typical hiring range listed above is specific to candidates located in Vancouver. The salary will be determined based on your knowledge, skills and competencies, and you’ll have room to grow after you join!
If you’re interested in the position but your expectations don’t fully align with the provided range, we still encourage you to apply! Considerations may be made based on your experience level.
Excited by this opportunity? Kabam is dedicated to growing our diverse and inclusive workforce, so if your past experience doesn’t perfectly match the listed requirements we encourage you to apply anyways - you could be a great fit for this or other positions.
We invite you to apply now and start the conversation with us. Together, we can create and support some of the best games ever made and entertain the world!
About Kabam
Kabam is a world leader in developing entertaining, immersive, and highly social multiplayer games, bringing high-quality graphics, next-generation technology, and revolutionary gameplay to players around the world.
Kabam’s games, Marvel Contest of Champions, Shop Titans, and more have generated hundreds of millions of downloads and have received multiple awards including Apple’s Editor’s Choice and Google Play’s Best Game of the Year.
Founded in 2006, Kabam has studios and offices in Vancouver, Montreal and Charlottetown in Canada, Los Angeles and San Francisco in the United States, and in Seoul, South Korea. Kabam is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Netmarble Games.
Kabam is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer committed to building a diverse and equitable workplace, and inclusive environment for all existing and potential employees. Employment decisions are based on candidate qualifications and business need, not race, color, ancestry, place of origin, age, sex (including pregnancy), gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, political belief, religion, creed, marital or family status, medical condition, genetic information, physical or mental disability, military or veteran status, prior criminal conviction or any other protected class in accordance with federal, state or provincial and local laws and ordinances. Accommodations will be provided as requested by candidates taking part in all aspects of the selection process.
