3D Art Lead

StoryToys; United States; Remote; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

StoryToys is seeking a 3D Art Lead to guide the 3D discipline across mobile games. You will own the pipeline from asset creation through runtime in Unity, mentor artists, and ensure optimal performance on mobile devices while maintaining brand quality.

You will collaborate with Engineering, Production, QA and Design, driving technical direction, staffing decisions, and continuous improvements to sustain a scalable, high-quality production workflow.

Qualifications

• Extensive experience in 3D art for games with leadership experience.
• Expert knowledge of real-time 3D production workflows (modelling, UVs, texturing, rigging, animation).
• Maya across core 3D disciplines; ability to inspect and troubleshoot assets.
• Strong experience with Substance Painter and Adobe Creative Cloud.
• Portfolio or showreel demonstrating high-quality 3D artwork.

Responsibilities

• Lead and coach the 3D art team to deliver high-quality work across projects.
• Plan resources, forecast capacity and balance development goals.
• Own the 3D production pipeline from asset creation to runtime in Unity.
• Ensure Unity integration, efficient asset workflows and performance.
• Provide technical direction on modelling, skinning, animation and optimisation.
• Collaborate with Engineering, Production, QA and Design to resolve issues.
• Identify bottlenecks and drive continuous pipeline improvements.

Skills

3D art leadership

Realtime 3D workflows

Maya mastery

Substance Painter

Portfolio shown

Unity integration

Technical direction

GPU/mobile optimisation

Git/Jira

Education

Fine Arts degree

Game Design

Computer Graphics

Tools

Unity

Maya

ZBrush

Blender

Substance Painter

Git

Jira

Adobe CC

Job description

The 3D Art Lead is responsible for the people, craft and technical development of the 3D discipline within StoryToys' mobile games development team. The role combines strong people leadership with expert knowledge of end-to-end real-time 3D production, from modelling, UVs and texturing through rigging, skinning, animation, Unity implementation and mobile optimisation.

The role owns the health and continuous development of StoryToys' 3D production workflow, establishing scalable standards, identifying bottlenecks and working across Art, Engineering, Technical Art, Production, QA and Creative to deliver high-quality, efficient and maintainable 3D content.

The 3D Art Lead is also responsible for developing team capability through mentoring, performance management, recruitment and resource planning, while remaining technically credible and sufficiently hands-on to investigate problems, prototype solutions and provide effective artistic and technical direction.

Main Duties & Responsibilities

Leadership & People Management

Team Leadership lead, coach and support the 3D art team, creating an environment in which artists can do high-quality work, develop their skills and contribute effectively across projects.

People Management and Career Development: conduct regular 1:1s with direct reports, set expectations and development goals, provide timely performance feedback, identify training opportunities and performance interventions where required.

Recruitment and Onboarding: Participate in portfolio reviews, interviews, hiring decisions, onboarding, training and mentoring for 3D art roles, helping maintain a clear and consistent capability bar across the discipline.

Strategic Planning & Resource Management

Planning and Resourcing: Work with the Art Manager / Head of Art, Production and project leads to allocate 3D team members according to project needs, individual strengths and development goals. Forecast capability or capacity gaps and recommend resourcing or workflow solutions against the product roadmap.

Agile Delivery Support: Support task planning, estimation, prioritisation, dependency management and risk identification within an Agile production environment. Help ensure technical or art-pipeline concerns are represented during planning and delivery.

3D Pipeline Ownership & Process Improvement

Pipeline Ownership and Development: Own the health and continuous development of the 3D production pipeline from source asset creation through skinning, rigging, animation, Unity implementation and final runtime use. Establish and maintain best practices, technical standards, asset specifications, file structures, naming conventions, import settings and documentation.

Unity and Runtime Integration: Ensure 3D assets are correctly integrated into Unity and that workflows around prefabs, materials, animation, asset libraries, import settings and source files remain efficient, consistent and maintainable.

Technical Leadership & Quality Assurance

Technical Direction and Cross-Discipline Decision Making: Act as the 3D technical representative when working with Engineering, Technical Art, Production and other teams. Understand the implications of technical decisions on 3D asset creation, implementation, performance and maintainability. Question, challenge or propose alternatives when solutions create unnecessary production cost, technical debt or limitations for the Art team.

Technical and Craft Leadership: Review 3D work and provide clear, actionable feedback across modelling, topology, UVs, texturing, rigging, skinning, animation, Unity implementation and mobile optimisation. Maintain a strong quality bar while ensuring work remains appropriate to production and platform constraints.

Hands-On Technical and Production Support: Remain close enough to production to investigate problems, prototype solutions and contribute specialist knowledge or additional support as required. Retain sufficient hands-on proficiency to understand current workflows and provide credible technical and artistic direction.

Asset Optimisation Ensure assets are optimised for mobile platforms without compromising visual quality, user experience or adherence to Brand and Company guidelines. Work with Technical Art and Engineering to understand performance constraints and establish appropriate budgets and standards.

Cross-Functional Collaboration & Partnerships

Technical Art Partnership: Partner closely with Technical Artists, providing requirements and priorities from the 3D discipline and collaborating on tools, automation, shaders, performance improvements and engine-side solutions. The 3D Art Lead is accountable for the effectiveness of the overall 3D production workflow; Technical Artists provide specialist technical implementation and engineering-facing expertise.

Collaboration Work closely with designers, programmers, technical artists, producers and QA to ensure 3D assets are implemented successfully, dependencies are understood and risks are resolved early. Communicate art requirements clearly and negotiate technical trade-offs constructively.

Continuous Improvement & Risk Management

Pipeline Troubleshooting and Risk Identification: Investigate recurring or high-impact issues affecting 3D production and implementation. Determine whether problems originate in asset creation, workflow, Unity configuration, tools or engineering systems, and coordinate the appropriate people to resolve them. Identify risks early enough to be addressed during planning rather than late in production.

3D Track Development: Support the growth of the 3D discipline within the Art Department by identifying skills gaps, training needs, workflow improvements, tooling opportunities and future capability requirements.

Key Skills, Knowledge & Experience

3D Art & Production

• Extensive professional experience in 3D art for games, animation, interactive media or a closely related field, including experience in leadership and/or people management roles.

• Expert knowledge of real-time 3D production workflows, including modelling, topology, UV mapping, texturing, materials, rigging, skinning, animation, asset export/import and runtime optimisation.

• Advanced proficiency in Maya across core 3D production disciplines, with the ability to inspect, troubleshoot and modify assets, rigs and scenes as required.

• Strong working knowledge of Substance Painter and relevant Adobe Creative Cloud applications.

• Portfolio or showreel demonstrating high-quality 3D artwork and relevant production experience.

Unity & Technical Knowledge

• Strong professional experience using Unity, including asset integration, prefab management, materials, animation implementation, import settings and performance-conscious workflows.

• Strong understanding of mobile optimisation principles, including geometry, textures, memory usage, materials, draw calls, batching, level of detail (LOD) management and profiling concepts.

• Experience collaborating with Technical Artists and Engineers to resolve pipeline, tooling and runtime challenges.

• Experience using version control systems, such as Git, within a collaborative development environment.

Desirable

• Knowledge of shaders, visual effects (VFX), lighting and Unity rendering pipelines beyond routine 3D production requirements.

Leadership & Collaboration

• Proven experience leading, mentoring or managing artists, including 1:1s, performance feedback, development planning and day-to-day support.

• Strong communication, listening, problem-solving and leadership skills, with the ability to work effectively across Art, Engineering, Production, Design and QA.

• Confidence evaluating technical approaches, challenging assumptions and negotiating practical technical and production trade-offs.

• Experience supporting recruitment, onboarding and team capability development.

Pipeline & Process Improvement

• Proven experience improving 3D production pipelines or workflows within a shipped production environment.

• Ability to identify bottlenecks, investigate root causes and implement improvements that increase efficiency, consistency, quality or scalability.

• Experience establishing production standards, asset specifications, naming conventions, folder structures, validation requirements and documentation.

• Strong systems-oriented approach to workflow, pipeline and process improvement.

Mobile Games & Industry Experience

• Professional experience within the games industry, ideally in mobile game development.

• Strong understanding of mobile game development, real-time asset creation and asset optimisation.

• Experience working within Agile development environments and collaborating with Production on planning, capacity management, dependencies and delivery.

• Proficiency in industry-standard creative software and tools relevant to 3D art production.

Desirable

• Degree in Fine Arts, Game Design, Computer Graphics, Animation or a related discipline.

• Experience working with licensed intellectual property (IP), strict brand guidelines and external stakeholders.

• Experience developing games or applications for children, families or younger audiences.

• Experience using project management and collaboration tools such as Jira, Slack, Float, Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Office.

• Experience with creative software including ZBrush, Blender and Adobe Premiere.

Education

Desirable

• A degree in Fine Arts, Game Design, Computer Graphics, Animation or a related field is preferred but not mandatory.