The Senior Art Director reports to the Head of Art at Wicked Workshop. The position will see your supervise a large, thriving and talented art team, establish direction, consistency and quality. Your effective, and considered communication style will provide continual feedback, execution standards to help guide the artistic vision for our clients games. As Senior Director, you will ensure that assets are on time, at client and our quality bar, whilst performant in engine. 

• Managing dedicated art teams across geographies or studios, emphasizing overall quality, productivity, and continuous team development.  
• Engages in interactions at a higher level, handling crucial project kick-offs, communications, and escalations, with a focus on meeting and exceeding client expectations.  
• Focuses on guiding art teams across multiple studios to achieve broader project goals and maintain high-quality standards.  
• Play a key role in project planning and execution at a higher level, potentially handling multiple projects simultaneously, with a focus on achieving timelines, quality benchmarks, and budgetary allocations.  
• Engages in comprehensive artistic mentorship, leading and managing dedicated art teams across various domains or studios, contributing to the overall artistic direction.  
• Anticipate future project challenges, spearhead solutions, and set high-level goals for the team.
• Actively support, mentor, and manage the Art leads, Associate Art Directors, and their direct reports by communicating department initiatives, sharing best practices, elevating leadership, and contributing as a community member.
• An impeccable eye for aesthetic quality, visual excellence and a high attention to detail demonstrated through an impressive art portfolio.
• Highly proficient in current development tools and software including Unreal, Unity, Maya/ 3DS Max/Blender, Zbrush and Substance.
• A confident art leader with excellent verbal and written communication skills. You will have the ability to articulate visual ideas with clarity and conviction and provide clear feedback and guidance.
• Good understanding of fundamental art principles; colour and lighting theory, composition and staging techniques.

Tantalus North is thrilled to announce we are expanding and on the lookout for leadership-level artists (Lead and above) to join our dynamic team! This is an exciting opportunity to show your expression of interest and to be a part of our next exciting chapter.

As a leader in the art discipline, you will be responsible for hiring, organising and motivating a team of artists to deliver at the highest standards. Utilising your artistic, technical and managerial expertise, you will work closely with the team and other department leads to plan and direct work to meet deadlines and product vision.

You will be an accomplished production-focused artist with a proven track record in the game industry, and excellent communication and people skills. In this role you are required to anticipate and find solutions on both team and art production levels to deliver stunning visual experiences.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Provide clear, concise visual direction and guidance across all Art development at Tantalus North and review all digital assets, providing feedback in a timely manner.
• Share your passion for excellence, create inspiring artwork/style guides to clearly promote the high visual quality standards we are aiming for and ensure that everyone is working together to meet these standards.
• Drive the vision forward by aligning with and fully understanding the art direction and then working alongside our internal and insourced art team/s to ensure creative cohesion.
• Continually look for opportunities to innovate and improve the visual quality on all projects.
• Take an active role in planning of project pitches and be comfortable dealing face to face with external clients to discuss opportunities for working with them on their games.
• Help to build and raise the profile of the growing art team.
• Mentor Artists in the team, providing support and nurturing to encourage their continued growth, helping to improve their skills and build their knowledge and confidence.
• Oversee and provide detailed feedback to multiple art disciplines including UI, Environment Art, Lighting, VFX, Character and Concept Art.

DEMONSTRATED SKILLS & QUALIFICATIONS

• An impeccable eye for aesthetic quality, visual excellence and a high attention to detail demonstrated through an impressive art portfolio.
• Highly proficient in current development tools and software including Unreal, Unity, Maya/ 3DS Max/Blender, Zbrush and Substance.
• A confident art leader with excellent verbal and written communication skills. You will have the ability to articulate visual ideas with clarity and conviction and provide clear feedback and guidance.
• Good understanding of fundamental art principles; colour and lighting theory, composition and staging techniques.
• Able to creatively supervise and drive artwork, directing other artists and leading by example.
• Agile, overseeing internal and globally diverse art teams on multiple projects and from various disciplines, and be able to adapt to a variety of art styles.
• Understand up-to-date game development technical processes, you will take a keen interest in latest workflows and have an interest in learning, evaluating and evangelizing appropriate usage of new software, tools and technologies.
• You will have good leadership skills, be a collaborative team player, with significant game art management experience.
• You will have a calm, positive and professional attitude alongside excellent interpersonal skills.