Company: Absurd Ventures

🎮 Character Outsourcing Artist | Santa Monica, CA Absurd Ventures is looking for a Character Outsourcing Artist to help bring our game’s characters to life. This role bridges internal development and external vendors, ensuring outsourced character assets meet artistic, technical, and quality standards. You’ll also contribute by creating high-quality hand-made character art when needed, independent of scans. Key Responsibilities Review, integrate, and provide feedback on character assets from outsourcing partners, maintaining artistic and technical quality. Create high-quality character models, textures, and materials that match the project’s style and fidelity goals. Maintain consistency across outsourced assets, ensuring adherence to visual benchmarks, technical specifications, and naming conventions. Collaborate with Art Director, Lead Character Artist, and Technical Animators to ensure characters look great and function properly in-engine. Provide clear and actionable feedback, reference materials, and documentation to outsourcing teams. Troubleshoot and resolve technical issues related to character asset integration. Core Qualifications Proven experience as a Character Artist in the video game industry with at least one shipped AAA title. Strong portfolio showcasing modeling, texturing, material creation, and technical ability. Proficient in Maya, ZBrush, Substance Painter, Marvelous Designer, Photoshop, and Perforce. Familiarity with Unreal Engine and asset integration pipelines. Excellent communication skills for giving clear feedback to external vendors. Strong organizational skills and attention to detail, managing multiple assets simultaneously. Bonus Skills Strong drawing and painting skills. Experience working directly with outsourcing teams on character pipelines. Knowledge of Marvelous Designer, XGen Hair/Fur workflows, rigging, skinning, or animation support. Creative ideas to elevate character quality and workflow efficiency. Employment Details Type: Full-time, On-site Location: Santa Monica, CA Salary: $120,000 – $140,000 per year Benefits: Paid vacation, sick leave, holidays, parental leave, medical/dental/vision insurance, life & disability insurance, 401(k) matching, and potential bonus/equity. This is a key role for artists who excel in both creation and collaboration, helping shape AAA-quality characters while working with internal teams and outsourcing partners.

🎮 Senior Technical Artist – Materials | Absurd Ventures (Santa Monica, CA) Absurd Ventures is looking for a Senior Technical Artist (Materials) to help define the visual fidelity of our AAA open-world game. You’ll focus on creating, optimizing, and implementing high-quality materials and shaders that enhance realism and immersion across environments and characters. This role combines artistic vision with technical expertise, collaborating closely with artists, engineers, and designers to ensure materials are visually stunning while maintaining performance across platforms. Key Responsibilities Design and implement material pipelines and create high-quality, optimized materials and shaders using physically-based rendering (BSDF). Develop layered, dynamic, and procedural materials for diverse environmental and character needs. Partner with environment and character artists, and engineers to ensure seamless material integration. Establish and maintain best practices for material creation and optimization. Analyze material performance across platforms and implement optimizations without compromising visual quality. Solve technical material challenges to meet frame rate and memory targets. Explore and implement new material workflows and shader techniques. Develop tools, utilities, and templates to improve artist workflows. Document best practices and workflows for material creation. Mentor and guide artists in material authoring and optimization. Core Qualifications 5+ years in Technical Art, Material Art, or similar roles in the gaming industry. Experience on at least one shipped AAA title. Expert knowledge of PBR (BSDF) material and shader authoring. Strong proficiency in Unreal Engine 5, including Material Editor, functions, and texture management. Experience with Substance Designer, Substance Painter, and Photoshop. Deep understanding of GPU profiling, draw calls, and performance optimization. Basic knowledge of Python, Blueprint, and HLSL for tool creation and pipeline enhancement. Strong problem-solving, collaboration, and communication skills. Bonus / Preferred Skills Experience with photogrammetry-based materials. Ability to work across both environment and character art disciplines. Familiarity with UE5 Substrate materials and advanced material workflows. Employment Details Type: Full-time, On-site Location: Santa Monica, CA Salary: $140,000 – $170,000 per year Benefits: Paid time off, sick leave, company holidays, parental leave, medical/dental/vision insurance, life & disability insurance, 401(k), plus potential bonus and equity. This is a key technical leadership role for a creative problem-solver passionate about pushing visual quality in AAA games.

🎮 Senior Animator – Absurd Ventures (San Rafael or Santa Monica, CA) Absurd Ventures is seeking a talented Senior Animator to craft high-quality character and creature animations that define the look and feel of our game worlds. You’ll ensure animations are fluid, realistic, and enhance gameplay, while collaborating closely with designers, engineers, and technical animators. Key Responsibilities Create keyframe and motion capture animations for player characters, NPCs, and enemies. Collaborate with designers and engineers to ensure animations integrate seamlessly with gameplay and AI systems. Help define and refine animation pipelines and workflows for efficiency and quality. Work with technical animators to develop state machines, blend trees, and procedural animation solutions. Maintain a high level of artistic and technical quality while meeting project deadlines. Mentor junior animators and share knowledge, techniques, and best practices. Iterate animations based on playtests and internal reviews for optimal performance and player experience. Core Qualifications 5+ years of experience in game animation. Strong proficiency in Maya. Experience with animation systems in modern game engines (Unreal Engine preferred). Deep understanding of animation principles, character performance, and motion dynamics. Familiarity with motion capture cleanup and implementation. Experience with state machines, blend trees, and animation-driven gameplay mechanics. Strong collaboration and communication skills across disciplines. Portfolio showcasing high-quality character animation. Bonus / Preferred Skills Experience with MotionBuilder. Knowledge of procedural or runtime animation techniques. Familiarity with scripting or tools development (Python, MEL, Blueprint). Background in combat, creature, or cinematic animation. Experience mentoring or leading a small animation team. Employment Details Type: Full-time, On-site Location: San Rafael, CA or Santa Monica, CA Salary: $120,000 – $150,000 per year (based on experience and location) Benefits: Vacation, sick leave, company holidays, parental leave, medical/dental/vision insurance, life insurance, disability insurance, 401(k) matching, with potential bonus and equity eligibility. This is a great opportunity for a skilled animator to have a direct impact on gameplay and storytelling while mentoring others and shaping the animation quality of a AAA game project.

🎮 Principal Lighting Artist – Absurd Ventures (Santa Monica, CA) Absurd Ventures is seeking a talented Principal Lighting Artist to lead the creative and technical vision for lighting across our projects. You will define mood, atmosphere, and storytelling through advanced lighting design, ensuring consistency and emotional impact across environments and cinematics. This role combines artistic leadership, hands-on creation, and mentorship, offering the chance to shape the visual identity of a AAA open-world game while working closely with Art, Design, and Engineering teams. Key Responsibilities Lead lighting for key areas of the game using real-time and post-process solutions. Establish a robust lighting ruleset for diverse natural and urban environments. Champion lighting as a core element of design, narrative, and tone across the game. Collaborate hands-on with directors for Look Development and overall lighting vision. Develop scalable lighting pipelines for production across internal and external teams. Create lighting states for dynamic lighting and weather systems. Work closely with Material Artists to maintain consistency, quality, and efficiency. Integrate assets from Substance Designer/Painter into lighting workflows. Ensure lighting goals are delivered on time and to high-quality standards. Mentor and provide feedback to junior Lighting Artists, fostering artistic growth. Core Qualifications 7+ years of experience in lighting, technical art, or rendering. Experience with large-scale open-world projects. Strong sense of cinematic storytelling, color, and mood. Expertise in real-time shading, rendering, and post-process effects (lens effects, color grading, tone mapping). Deep knowledge of physical lighting units, camera exposure, and linear space rendering. Excellent communication skills for collaboration across time zones. Understanding of performant lighting techniques for real-time optimization. Passion for exploring the latest lighting technologies and trends. Bonus / Preferred Skills Experience with Unreal Engine 5 (UE5). Strong fundamental art skills with an eye for color, form, composition, and narrative storytelling. Employment Details Type: Full-time, On-site Location: Santa Monica, CA (near downtown, metro, and freeways) Salary: $160,000 – $185,000 per year (based on experience and location) Benefits: Vacation, sick leave, company holidays, parental leave, medical/dental/vision insurance, life insurance, disability insurance, 401(k) matching, and potential bonus/equity eligibility. This is a high-impact role for a creative and technical leader ready to shape the visual storytelling of a AAA project. If you are passionate about cinematic lighting, innovation, and mentoring artists, this is your chance to make a lasting impact.