Company Overview:

A leader in creating deep and engaging experiences on PC and mobile, Jagex was founded in 2001 and is today one of the UK’s biggest and most respected video game developers and publishers.

Famed for its flagship MMOs RuneScape and Old School RuneScape, Jagex has welcomed more than 260million player accounts to its world and created a $1bn lifetime franchise revenue. Today the RuneScape franchise exists beyond running games in live operations; our titles are living games that connect and inspire millions of players, with content and experiences both inside and outside of inexhaustible game worlds.

Both RuneScape and Old School RuneScape, on PC and mobile, offer ever-evolving, highly-active worlds and our community-focussed development ethos empowers players to have a real say in how each game is shaped.

Jagex is expanding and extending its portfolio with fresh franchise titles, new IP and, in 2018 launched Jagex Partners, delivering third-party publishing and operational services exclusively for the living games of the future.

Jagex employs more than 400 people at its Cambridge headquarters and is on the hunt for talented people to work across the business to help the company to achieve yet another year of record growth and player satisfaction.

Job Overview:

We have an exciting and rare opportunity for a Senior Concept Artist to join our Old School RuneScape title. As a Senior Conceptual artist you will have the unique opportunity to join the Old School team and to become the creative spark of the art production pipeline. The Old School team are a highly passionate and dedicated team, who are proud to work on this unique game and continue to have very a special, close bond with our players.

The Senior Concept Artist works closely with the Associate Art Director to define the vision and create inspirational artwork for the wider team. The Conceptual artist acts as a creative bridge between art and all other disciplines. This role requires an interest in a broad range of visual style and sees beauty in simple, graphic but powerful imagery and can interpret and express those appropriately to your audience.  

As a Conceptual artist you will be required to visually develop and illustrate any given combination of game assets, associated game development imagery and speculative ‘pitch’ materials to a high standard and on schedule under the art direction of a lead or director.  Concept art is about communicating and developing ideas in a visually inspiring manner whilst successfully interpreting the visual direction and style.

Being a senior concept artist, it is expected you will design and create benchmark quality digital artwork meeting the art direction criteria. You set the quality bar and provide artistic, technical guidance, coaching and mentoring to others on how to achieve it.

At a senior level, it is important to demonstrate an all-round ability to solve problems reliably and autonomously with great organizational, scheduling and mentorship skills. You must show an ability to look more broadly at product development and strategize accordingly within discipline. Overall, as a senior you are expected to take on a higher level of responsibility for the quality and timely delivery of complex tasks on a project. 

Main Duties & Responsibilities:

• Work with the teams Associate Art Director to visualize the game’s vision
• Produce benchmark quality assets covering all aspects of concept design, key art, illustration, and storyboards adhering to the products art direction
• Collaborate with the art team and create inspiring artwork. 
• Have deep knowledge and understanding of your product enabling to you make the best visual decisions and appropriate artwork
• Be a major driver and voice in cross discipline visual development, brainstorms, and pitches
• Review internal and external artwork to maintain a consistent quality and provide effective feedback and critique
• Level up via mentoring, coaching and critique sessions those more junior in craft
• Support production guide creation, outlining detailed steps to reproduce artwork on style
• Encourage, promote, and build good team and studio morale in an open, creative environment  
• Feedback to outsource partners or freelancers as required 

• Portfolio demonstrating an ability to visually develop an idea and render to a high level of finish
• Experience of multiple full game development cycles or live product releases
• Profound knowledge and expertise of the fundamental art principles
• Ability to deconstruct, understand and adapt to various art styles replicating them successfully
• Full proficiency in illustration and 2D software such as Adobe CC
• Fluent in industry standard concept design development processes and pipelines
• Iterative and agile approach to visual development
• A deep artistic toolbox with multiple approaches to visual development and problem solving
• Comfortable running critique sessions 
• Excellent time management and prioritization skills
• Ability to communicate clearly, and concisely to team, peers, and management   
• Able to level up junior artists through coaching and mentoring  
• Happy to both give and receive constructive criticism
• Have a passion for games and understand game development processes
• Professional attitude and work ethic  
• Excellent soft skills and teamwork  

Desirable but non-essential requirements:

• Comfortable using 3D modelling software
• Game engine experience (Unreal/ Unity)
• Traditional sculpting