About the Role
This role focuses on character creation, contributing to the art vision, and producing high-quality, optimized assets for real-time game engines. The position involves close collaboration with various teams and requires a strong understanding of game development pipelines and artistic consistency.
Responsibilities
- Contribute to the art vision for characters.
- Produce assets that align with the project’s artistic direction and technical requirements.
- Develop polished models, textures, shaders, and materials optimized for real-time game engines.
- Work closely with concept artists, designers, animators, and technical artists to translate concepts into final in-game assets.
- Collaborate with cross-functional teams throughout the production pipeline to ensure artistic consistency and quality.
- Participate in reviews, feedback sessions, and iterative development processes.
- Ensure assets meet performance, memory, and platform-specific requirements across all gaming platforms.
- Apply strong understanding of optimisation techniques.
- Maintain consistency in quality while adhering to technical constraints and engine limitations.
- Stay current with industry trends, emerging technologies, tools, and workflows.
- Contribute ideas and improvements to pipelines and production processes.
- Continuously push the visual quality and innovation of game art production.
- Provide guidance, mentorship, and constructive feedback to junior and mid-level artists.
- Support collaboration across internal teams and external vendors to maintain consistent asset quality.
- Contribute positively to team culture and artistic growth within the department.
Requirements
- Applicants must be currently residing in Japan and possess valid authorization to work in Japan.
- Extensive experience as a Character Artist within the video game industry, with a strong portfolio showcasing high-quality real-time game assets.
- Strong understanding of industry-standard 3D software such as Autodesk Maya, Blender, 3ds Max, ZBrush, Substance Painter, and related tools.
- Strong understanding of modelling, sculpting, UV mapping, texturing, anatomy, form, colour theory, and material creation.
- Experience creating optimized assets for modern real-time game engines such as Unreal Engine or Unity.
- Ability to work collaboratively within multidisciplinary teams, communicate ideas effectively, and incorporate feedback throughout production.
- Knowledge of game development pipelines and the ability to adapt artistic styles to suit various game genres and target platforms.
- Fluent in Japanese and with a high degree of English language proficiency.
- Passion for gaming and a strong understanding of market trends, player expectations, and gaming cultures across PC, Console, and Nintendo platforms.
- Experience successfully guiding and communicating with other art teams to ensure artistic vision and asset quality are maintained from concept through to final in-game implementation.
Skills
- 3D software (Autodesk Maya, Blender, 3ds Max, ZBrush, Substance Painter)
- Modelling
- Sculpting
- UV mapping
- Texturing
- Anatomy
- Form
- Colour theory
- Material creation
- Unreal Engine
- Unity
- Game development pipelines
- Artistic styles
- Japanese
- English
Location
- Japan
- Tokyo
Work Type
- Remote
- Full Time
- Contract
About the Company
- Keywords Studios is a global provider of creative and technical services to the video games industry, with over 13,000 professionals across 70+ studios in 25+ countries.
- In Japan, Keywords Studios delivers its full range of services across Create, Globalize, and Engage, supporting leading publishers, developers, agencies, and IP owners through both local and global teams.
Equal Opportunity
- Keywords is committed to creating a diverse, inclusive and supportive working environment.
