Lead Surfacing Artist

Description

About us

Nerd Corps Entertainment, established in 2002, is one of North America’s largest privately owned animation studios, boasting a diverse portfolio of award-winning original properties such as Slugterra, League of Super Evil, Storm Hawks and Rated A for Awesome. With six shows in production, there is always a genre or character to keep you interested and challenged. But we’re more than just an animation studio. Our 400 creatives build stories, worlds, and experiences for kids that cut across platforms from television to online, games, toys, mobile—wherever kids are spending time. We handle all stages of our process in-house, from the IP creation and development to post-production, finance, sales and distribution, licensing and consumer products, and interactive development, making us a rarity in the industry. Our studio near Vancouver’s trendy Commercial Drive is a vibrant mixture of rookies and veterans, where those fresh out of college can continue learning from mid-career and senior artists, and where every level of experience can make the most of their talent on some of the best kids shows and games in the world.

Leo, Gemini, Emmy…been there, won that.

Come work for an award-winning studio and make cartoons, not war.

Department: Modelling

Location: Vancouver

About the position

As the lead surfacing artist you will work in collaboration with the pipeline and modelling supervisors and play an integral role in the development and implementation of new shading networks and texture libraries as our studio migrates from XSI to Maya. You will work with the studio’s supervisors to establish the look development process of productions and guide your team to deliver the best looking shows.

Responsibilities

• Create and modify Maya shading networks to achieve the desired look
• Texturing, shading and UV mapping of all asset types
• Apply procedural shading techniques
• Troubleshoot creative and technical issues as they arise
• Optimize shaders for more efficient render times
• Provide shader support to the texture team
• Create and maintain shader libraries
• Collaborate with other departments as necessary to ensure proper completion of assets and to ensure a smooth production
• Maintain awareness of the broader show needs as they relate to surfacing
• Create stylized and procedural textures in a wide variety of styles
• Finish surfacing tasks as scheduled and as production requires
• Keep modelling and VFX supervisor aware of any production obstacles
• Keep current with industry trends

Crew Management

• Oversee the daily activities and capabilities of the surfacing team
• Partner with management to guide artists’ overall professional development, providing performance feedback, mentoring, assisting with resolving performance issues and maintaining positive morale amongst the crew
• Train and educate new hires
• Ensure the team completes tasks the best way possible and as scheduled
• Foster and enable cross departmental communication and collaborative environment
• Work with production team to identify appropriate staffing levels and needs
• Foster a healthy and creative work environment

Qualifications

• 2-3 years of experience in a leadership role in the animation/film/tv industry
• Good production experience in Maya
• Experience in shading with Maya
• Experience in texturing in variety of styles
• Experience in 3D painting of character, props
• Excellent attention to detail
• Strong technical and visual skills
• A passion for beauty and an artistic eye.
• Able to work alone and collaboratively, often with multiple tasks and under deadline pressure
• Encourages feedback and new initiatives
• Able to take direction, collaborate, and be a team player
• Able to communicate creative and technical thoughts and ideas
• Skilled at improvising and problem solving
• Thrive in a high-pressure, deadline-oriented environment

THANK YOU to all those who express interest in being a part of the Nerd Corps team. Unfortunately, due to the volume of applications we receive, we may be unable to reply to all applicants. If we feel that you may be a good match for one of our current openings you will be contacted.