Naughty Dog is hiring: Lead Environment Concept Artist in Santa Monica

Content Summary: Lead Environment Concept Artist at Santa Monica, for Naughty Dog

Naughty Dog is seeking a Lead Environment Concept Artist in Santa Monica, CA, to create captivating environments for their next award-winning game. The role involves managing the environment concept team, ensuring quality and consistency, and collaborating with various departments. Candidates should have extensive knowledge of game development tools and techniques, be able to manage schedules effectively, and contribute high-quality environment concepts. The studio values diversity and innovation in storytelling and gameplay.

Why Naughty Dog?
For nearly 40 years, Naughty Dog has been crafting best-selling, critically acclaimed games that constantly push the boundaries of narrative, gameplay, and technology. We’ve been busy at the Kennel, most recently releasing The Last of Us Part I, a complete and faithful remake of the original game, rebuilt from the ground up and fully optimized for the PlayStation 5 and currently in development for PC. As a part of the Naughty Dog legacy, you’ll be continuing the development of extraordinary and enduring experiences for a broad, global range of audiences.

Naughty Dog is looking for an experienced Environment Concept Artist to join our team in creating the next generation of award-winning storytelling! You’ll be responsible for creating the captivating environments and props working alongside the Background and Layout Design teams to bring these environments to life.

Responsibilities:

1. Communicates with Directors to bring directions to the environment concept team.
2. Manages and supports the environment concept team to ensure they are properly tasked and balances their workload, ensuring the team’s wellbeing.
3. Manages individual concept artists to keep their work on schedule.
4. Builds and modifies schedule based on the team and studio needs.
5. Maintains a clear and consistent workflow under an established schedule.
6. Works closely with Leads, Principals, and Directors to keep quality and style consistent across all environments.
7. Gives feedback to principals, seniors, and concept artists to ensure environments are high quality and consistent.
8. Provides direction to concept artists for aesthetic and technical considerations and helps set the quality bar for environments.
9. Understands other department workflows and dependencies related to the environment concept team.
10. Monitors the needs for Layout Design, Lighting, Background Art, and Foreground Art to ensure clear environments in game.
11. Works closely with Background Art and Lighting to create environments that meet artistic requirements.
12. Works with principals to improve or solve workflow or pipeline issues and overall create strategies to achieve department goals.
13. Has extensive knowledge of the latest game development tools, techniques, and workflows (including internal proprietary tools) and the ability to share this with the team.
14. As an individual contributor, be able to make environment concepts in the highest quality across the industry.

Skills Required:

1. Great capacity for managing the environment concept team in terms of art and building achievable, realistic schedules, according to the needs of the studio.
2. Develop and maintain strong creative and collaborative partnerships across disciplines to help further develop the game environment and visual language.
3. Actively improve your skills and maintain an awareness of industry techniques, tools, evaluate competitive products, learning new software packages and traditional art methods.
4. At least 8 years of experience as a concept artist, working on at least one AAA title.
5. Great capacity to give the team feedback and help set the quality bar.
6. Very strong portfolio showing high quality concepts.
7. Expertise in concepting environments, high vision concept art, hard-surface props, key-frames, and production callouts for games.
8. Keen eye and strong foundational art skills to include form, lighting, colors, and composition.
9. Knowledge of working with various 3D packages used in concept work and in collaboration with other departments.

Sony is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All persons will receive consideration for employment without regard to gender (including gender identity, gender expression, and gender reassignment), race (including color, nationality, ethnic, national origin), religion or belief, marital or civil partnership status, disability, age, sexual orientation, pregnancy or parental status, trade union membership or membership in any other legally protected category.

We strive to create an inclusive environment, empower employees, and embrace diversity. We encourage everyone to respond.

The estimated base pay range for this role is listed below. $128,400—$192,600 USD.

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