Lead Character Artist

Virtuos; Dublin; On-site; EUR 90,000 - 125,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Healthcare plan

Pension scheme

Relocation support

Flexible work arrangements

Sick and wellness leave

Job summary

Black Shamrock in Dublin seeks a Lead Character Artist to guide a team delivering production-ready characters for AAA games.

You will oversee concept to final in-engine delivery, collaborate with sister studios and clients, and maintain high standards across characters, topology, UVs, and textures. Experience with MetaHuman and real-time pipelines is essential.

Qualifications

• Strong professional experience as a Character Artist in game development with shipped titles and leadership experience.
• Portfolio showing high-quality real-time characters and AAA standards.
• Excellent understanding of anatomy, likeness, clothing, materials, and hard-surface elements.
• Advanced proficiency with ZBrush, Marvelous Designer, Substance 3D Painter, and major packages (Maya/Blender/3ds Max).
• Strong Unreal Engine 5 production experience including materials, skeletal meshes, LODs, Groom, and optimization.
• Experience with MetaHuman Creator and integration into pipelines.

Responsibilities

• Lead, mentor, and grow character artists with regular feedback and development plans.
• Plan and delegate work with Production; manage capacity and delivery timelines.
• Set and maintain character quality standards with Art Direction and reviews.
• Create and refine real-time characters including heads, bodies, clothing, armor, and hair.
• Oversee character delivery from concept to in-engine implementation.

Skills

Character leadership

Unreal Engine 5

MetaHuman Creator

ZBrush

Marvelous Designer

Substance Painter

Sculpting & retopology

Photogrammetry

Tools

Unreal Engine 5

MetaHuman

ZBrush

Marvelous Designer

Substance 3D Painter

Maya

Job description

PLAY, GROW and WIN

To be a part of Virtuos means to be a creator.

At Virtuos, we harness the latest technologies to make games better and more immersive than ever before. That is why we pride ourselves in constantly pushing the boundaries of possibility since our founding in 2004.

Virtuosi is a team of experts – people who have come together to share their mutual passion for making and playing games. People with the same enthusiasm for exploring new ideas and the constant drive to excel in their field. People who believe in earning success through dedication.

At Virtuos, we are at the forefront of gaming, creating exciting new experiences daily. Join us to Play, Grow and Win - together.

ABOUT THE POSITION

Black Shamrock is looking for an experienced Lead Character Artist to lead a team delivering high-quality, production-ready characters for AAA game development.

The ideal candidate combines strong artistic fundamentals and hands- on expertise in modern real-time character production, including Unreal Engine 5, MetaHuman, scanning and photogrammetry, with proven team leadership. You will guide character production from initial concept or scan through final in-engine delivery, supporting your artists and building effective partnerships with sister studios and clients.

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Lead, manage, and mentor character artists through regular feedback, one-to-ones, and development planning, fostering accountability and a collaborative team culture.

• Plan and delegate work with Production, balancing team capacity, priorities, dependencies, and delivery schedules, and escalating risks early.

• Set and maintain character quality standards with Art Direction, lead art reviews, and provide clear, actionable feedback.

• Remain hands- on in creating high-quality real-time characters, including heads, bodies, clothing, armor, accessories, hair, and related assets.

• Oversee character delivery from concept, reference, or scan through sculpting, modeling, texturing, grooming, optimization, and final in-engine implementation.

• Create production-ready topology, UVs, PBR textures and materials, with strong attention to anatomy, likeness, clothing, surface detail, and deformation requirements.

• Create clothing using Marvelous Designer and process scan and photogrammetry data for production.

• Implement and polish characters in Unreal Engine 5, working with materials, skeletal meshes, LODs, Groom, physics, and related character systems.

• Ensure assets meet established artistic, technical, memory, and performance requirements.

• Collaborate closely with Art Direction, Concept Art, Technical Art, Rigging, Animation, VFX, Lighting, and Engineering.

• Create and maintain production documentation, including character workflows, technical specifications, quality benchmarks, onboarding guides, and handover requirements.

• Partner with sister studios to align workflows and quality expectations, coordinate asset ownership and handovers, and share knowledge across teams.

• Serve as a key character-art contact for clients, presenting work, clarifying briefs and feedback, communicating progress and risks, and agreeing actions with Art Direction and Production.

QUALIFICATIONS

• Strong professional experience as a Character Artist in game development, with shipped PC and/or console titles and proven experience leading character-art teams.

• Strong portfolio demonstrating high-quality real-time characters and current AAA production standards.

• Excellent understanding of human and facial anatomy, proportion, likeness, clothing, materials, and hard-surface character elements.

• Advanced proficiency with ZBrush, Marvelous Designer, Substance 3D Painter, and a major 3D package such as Maya, Blender, or 3ds Max.

• Strong production experience with Unreal Engine 5, including character materials, skeletal meshes, LODs, Groom, optimization, and performance considerations.

• Strong practical experience with MetaHuman Creator and the MetaHuman framework, including customization and integration of custom heads, bodies, textures, clothing, and hair.

• Experience with 3D and facial scanning, photogrammetry, and scan-data processing.

• Strong understanding of character rigging, skinning, deformation, facial topology, FACS, blend shapes, facial animation, and performance-capture requirements.

• Understanding of MetaHuman-specific facial and DNA-based systems, and their integration with Animation and Technical Art pipelines.

• Ability to work independently from concepts, scans, photography, and reference while responding effectively to Art Direction.

• Demonstrated ability to manage and develop artists, delegate effectively, and balance hands- on work with team leadership.

• Experience producing clear production documentation and coordinating character-art delivery with clients and distributed studio teams.

• Strong presentation, communication, and problem-solving skills, with the ability to translate feedback into actionable direction and resolve competing priorities.

Desirable Skills:

• Interest & knowledge of latest industry trends, tools and technologies.

• Experience with Houdini, particularly procedural workflows applicable to character production.

• Experience developing characters in other commercial or proprietary game engines and adapting character pipelines across different engines or platforms.

ABOUT US

Founded in 2004, Virtuos is one of the largest independent video game development companies. We are headquartered in Singapore with offices in Asia, Europe, and North America. Specializing in full-cycle game development and art production, we have delivered high-quality content for more than 1,500 console, PC, and mobile games. Our clients include 23 of the top 25 gaming companies worldwide.

About Our TeamBlack Shamrock was founded in 2016 and acquired by the Virtuos Group in 2017. The studio is Ireland's largest PC and console game development studio and provides unique opportunities to work on multiple AAA titles. Our people are as diverse, exciting, creative, and dynamic as the projects that we work on. Black Shamrock is a place for talent to flourish and lifelong industry connections to begin. Our in-house and full-service capabilities include narrative, game, sound and level design, animation, art, rigging, engineering, and graphics, to name a few areas our skilled team members work on. At Black Shamrock, we take pride in helping put Dublin on the world map as the birthplace of award-winning AAA games.

WHAT WE OFFER

• Being part of one of the largest and fastest-growing game development studios in Ireland
• Dynamic career paths contributing to some of the world’s biggest AAA titles in gaming
• Opportunities to grow in a tight-knit community with a people-oriented culture
• Healthy work-life balance and flexible work arrangements
• Comprehensive company healthcare plan
• Occupational Pension Scheme (including employer contribution)
• Global training and development plans - study support, formal education, international experience, career planning and progression opportunities
• Bank for paid sick leave and wellness leave
• Subsidised leave
• Relocation support
• Taxsaver plans
• Career and international mobility opportunities with Virtuos Internal Mobility Program

People matter. Diverse opinions and experiences matter. At Virtuos, our talented teams are the cornerstone of our success, and we recognize that fostering and advocating for inclusivity is at the center of what we do best - we make games better, together. Virtuos is proud to be an equal opportunity employer that embraces diversity of thought, expression, culture, and backgrounds.