Principal Concept Artist, Environment - Unpublished R&D Product

Riot Games was established in 2006 by entrepreneurial gamers who believe that player-focused game development can result in great games. In 2009, Riot released its debut title League of Legends to critical and player acclaim. As the most played video game in the world, over 100 million play every month. Players form the foundation of our community and it’s for them that we continue to evolve and improve the League of Legends experience.

We’re looking for humble but ambitious, razor-sharp professionals who can teach us a thing or two. We promise to return the favor. Like us, you take play seriously; you’re passionate about games. We embrace those who see things differently, aren’t afraid to experiment, and who have a healthy disregard for constraints.

That's where you come in.

As a Principal Environment Concept Artist on an unpublished R&D product you lead the project forward by working closely with Concept Artists and Art leadership to develop visual explorations for early game prototypes that define the promise of our game thesis and build organizational confidence in our project to facilitate efficient progress through the R&D development cycle through to global launch. Serving as a Environment Concept Art lead, you will work closely with other concept artists and the greater art team to set a fresh new Art Style for the game, establish genre-defining visual quality bars as well as define innovative cinematic narrative experiences for our target players. You will also work in close collaboration with game designers, writers and producers to bring new worlds and characters to life that are well tuned for the world of Runeterra and the League of Legends IP.

We are seeking a highly experienced environment concept artist with diverse and considerable experience driving new art styles and visual look prototypes for early game development in a hands-on manner. You will employ your expert level skills and deep understanding of concept art craft to lead the concept exploration as well as guiding team-wide 3D look development that is supported by Insights data and regular player testing based on goals and timelines set by Product & Art Leadership. You are an independent leader as well as a hands-on workhorse counted on to generate visual solutions for game concepts and world-building that will help guide the project forward, setting a high-bar for 2D and 3D art for our project that also supports Art Slice prototypes that the project will be using for gameplay validation. As a senior member of the team, you will help mentor your fellow team members to continue to raise the quality bar at the studio, as well as surfacing development challenges and project needs in order to help us consider future art staffing as well as outsource and contractor solutions.

Responsibilities:

• Collaborate closely with the Art Director, and other concept artists to produce high quality concept designs that define the creative & visual direction for the game based on timeline and goals set by product leadership.
• Lead both internal and external environment concept team with hands-on craft to explore, iterate and define character concept targets to build confidence in our stylistic explorations and later visual targets.
• Create high concept scene visual arts and environment illustrations that can align leadership and the team towards a clear visual direction and execution in 3D based on our desired player experience.
• Leverage world building knowledge and expertise to push environmental limits while maintaining clear art direction and visual consistency
• Create world-building concepts to broaden the visual languages and diversity of styles within our game to envision and drive future game content
• Create thumbnails, sketches, rendered concepts and production turn-arounds to help facilitate asset production and outsourcing, providing feedback, paintovers and notes as needed
• Execute paintovers over 3D blockouts that help further visual direction and visual fidelity of vertical slice assets and future production levels.
• Work with Art Leadership to develop and define a consistent visual style while working across the art team and across disciplines to maintain cohesive project-wide art execution as well as efficient concept-3D execution that flows through development pipelines.
• Mentor and train more junior artists on the team, providing and receiving clear feedback that allows for clear creative goals and outcomes that are well understood by the concept and greater art team.
• Help us manage outsourcing and contractor solutions, as well as explore new technologies and production techniques that can help us maintain an edge of efficiency in line with evolving industry standards.

Required Qualifications:

• 10+ years of professional experience working in concept art for gaming or equivalent industries.
• Expert proficiency in Photoshop and other relevant concept art tools.
• Expert proficiency in executing concept art fundamentals such as composition, design, color and perspective.
• Multiple shipped mobile or AAA game titles.
• Deep experience working in full game development cycles from early art exploration and prototype phases through to ship/live.

As a part of the application process, you will be expected to provide a portfolio or demo reel of their work and may be asked to complete an art test.

作为一名研究与开发项目中的首席场景概念艺术家，您将与团队紧密合作，通过为早期游戏原型开发视觉探索来推动项目进展，定义我们的游戏理念并建立组织对项目的信心，从而帮助项目高效地通过R&D开发周期并实现全球发布。作为环境概念艺术负责人，您将与其他概念艺术家及整个艺术团队密切合作，设定全新的艺术风格，为游戏建立类型定义的视觉质量标准，并为目标玩家设计创新的电影叙事体验。您还将与游戏设计师、编剧和制作人紧密合作，将全新的世界和角色带入现实，确保它们适合《符文之地》及《英雄联盟》IP的世界观。

我们正在寻找一位经验丰富的场景概念艺术家，具备多样且深厚的经验，能够亲手推动早期游戏开发中的新艺术风格和视觉原型设计。您将利用您的专业技能和对概念艺术的深入理解，引领概念探索，并指导团队进行基于Insigh…