Job Summary

Swaybox Studios is seeking a technically adept and creatively driven CG Texture and Lookdev Senior Artist to seamlessly integrate facial performance through the innovative combination of keyframe poses and proprietary facial replacement technology. This role is central to maintaining the emotional fidelity and character consistency of our hybrid puppetry performances, ensuring the final output meets the high artistic standards of the studio.

The CG Texture and Lookdev Senior Artist will focus on facial performance replacement with a handoff to the compositing team. This person will play a hands-on role in bringing our characters to life, improving workflows, resolving creative challenges, and collaborating with Supervisors and Technical Directors to evolve tools that enhance production efficiency. This is a perfect position for a VFX artist who understands the subtle art of expression, character performance, and hybrid storytelling.

Key Responsibilities

• Implement best practices in the face replacement pipeline, ensuring poses and expressions are seamlessly matched to animation and puppet facial performances.
• Demonstrate a strong understanding of surface characteristics to create, adjust, and match textures and shading to our fabricated puppets.
• Replicate lighting from live action plates onto our characters with an emphasis on fine details, performance nuances, and the overall aesthetic of our film.
• Collaborate with VFX Supervisor, MoMo Art Supervisor, and TDs to identify areas of improvement in the pipeline, including tool and workflow development.
• Maintain output quality and momentum in a fast-paced environment.
• Preserve cohesive character consistency across facial replacements and ensure smooth integration of our internal puppet performances, animation, and live action plates.
• Communicate effectively with production and creative leads to align visual performance with narrative goals.

Required Qualifications

• 5+ years experience in high-end live action VFX films or television, with a strong understanding of facial performance work.
• Proficient in UV, texture, shading, and lighting within the following programs: Substance Painter, Substance Designer, Photoshop, Houdini, and Maya.
• Basic knowledge of compositing in Nuke to create and refine slap comps for presentation.
• In depth knowledge of texture mapping techniques.
• Deep understanding of visual language- texture, color, dimension, scale, perspective, shade, motion blur, depth of field, proportion, spatial awareness, etc.
• Strong problem-solving skills, attention to detail, and the ability to adapt quickly to unique or proprietary workflows.

Preferred Qualifications

• Prior experience in both stylized and realistic texture and shading creation of digital faces is great to have.
• Background in traditional art.
• Working knowledge of on-set camera work, including understanding of lenses, lighting setups, and performance tracking.
• Experience with photogrammetry and scanning is a huge plus.
• Familiarity with hybrid workflows that span traditional VFX and digital puppetry.
• Experience with ZBrush and other 3D software is advantageous.
• An artistic mindset and willingness to receive and implement constructive feedback.