Lead Concept Artist

About the role

As a Lead Concept Artist at Fortis Games, you will work closely with the Art Director to help conceptualize the visual style of our mobile games. You’ll bring your expertise as a visionary, designer, and storyteller to lead a global team of passionate artists to visually communicate and maintain a stylized art direction throughout the creation of world-class environments, characters, props, and key art marketing materials.

What you’ll achieve

• Collaborate with the Art Director to establish and execute the artistic vision of a game.
• Create designs for characters, creatures, props, and environments to elevate the gameplay and overall player experience.
• Gather and catalog references, conduct competitive analysis, and formulate research strategies under the lead of the Art Director.
• Understand and evangelize the visual style of the game, sharing knowledge with the team to ensure that the vision and directions are clear and understandable.
• Collaborate with other leads and team members across various departments to problem-solve and help steer the conceptual direction into the final game experience.
• Lead the Concept Art team, guiding other artists through both mentorship and constructive critique.
• Schedule, prioritize and monitor tasks for your team.
• Work closely with the Design, 3D Asset, Environment, and Character teams, joining their design processes and resolving visual problems that arise during production.
• Benchmark quality assets covering all aspects of style guides, creative briefs, concept design, key art, illustration, and experiments adhering to the overall art direction.
• A visual style that has broad appeal while being distinct and memorable. We aspire for our original IP to have the potential to cross over into multiple games, genres, and media.
• A well-led team of artists who feel informed, challenged, and supported to do their best work.
• An efficient and scalable art pipeline that can provide a foundation for future games shaped by constructive feedback and implemented solutions.

What you’ll need to be successful

• Outstanding 2D drawing skills and a good aesthetic sense with a solid understanding of how concepts translate into 3D game assets. 
• Top-notch technique and thorough knowledge of anatomy, perspective, composition, color theory, shape language, mood and tone and textures.
• Solid understanding of technical constraints, and terminology.
• Mastery of industry-standard digital painting tools such as Photoshop 
• Ability to turn ideas into images, coupled with a desire to push the envelope.
• A portfolio showcasing a range in styles that leans heavily towards stylized work.
• Commitment to the project and a desire to find the best possible way of inspiring others.
• Ability to communicate your creative vision, process, decisions, and rationale to team members and cross-functional stakeholders in a way that inspires and motivates.
• Enthusiasm for directing, mentoring, and otherwise elevating the people around you to do their best work.
• A natural curiosity and eagerness to learn - we believe this is essential to our ability to stay ahead of the market and value this over years of experience.
• We expect our leaders to continue being students of their craft and the game spaces they’re working in.
• You should be aware of the latest trends and have a strong perspective on how they relate to our current and future projects.
• Have deep experience as a concept artist in games and/or related industries