Chuhai Labs is looking for a Lead Artist to join our team to help bring an exciting new project to life!

Chuhai Labs is an indie developer/publisher founded in 2002 by Nintendo alumnus Giles Goddard who developed classic titles Star Fox, 1080 Snowboarding, Super Mario 64, and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. We are located in the beautiful city of Kyoto, Japan.

Why Chuhai Labs?

Chuhai Labs is the studio behind games you love like Cursed to Golf, Whitewater Wipeout, and Carve Snowboarding. As a company, we embrace remote working and recognize its benefits. As long as we get the results we need - excellent work, which satisfies our customers, done on schedule - we are willing to be as flexible as we can. We offer rare chances for accomplished people from all over the world in all walks of life, to work their ideal job whilst living the life they want, at their own pace.

What We Need You To Do

• Clearly define and manage the ways art assets are authored, including tools, file formats, and naming conventions. Hold regular reviews of artists’ work to effectively and efficiently explain what needs changing and how.
• Understand the artistic vision of, and work closely with, the Art Director to define the target art style. Develop, document, and be responsible for viable workflows, their resulting assets, and the use of them to achieve the art style in-game.
• Be the driving force for an art team of up to ten people, where possible assisting the team in art asset creation, and guiding artists of various disciplines towards achieving both their individual and collective artistic goals.
• Work with Project Manager to manage the scope, scheduling, planning, quantity, and quality of art assets creation.
• Represent the art team in leadership meetings, conveying their ideas and feelings about the project to leadership, and sharing leadership’s feedback with the art team.

Required Experience & Knowledge

• 4+ years’ experience in commercial game development
• 2+ years’ experience as the leader of an art team of at least four people
• At least two commercially shipped games, with the ability to demonstrate and explain how you successfully led the creation of a shipped game’s art style
• Proficiency and comfort working within the Unity game engine
• Ability to demonstrate excellent art foundation skills, enough to confidently lead other artists on how to modify composition, color theory, perspective, lighting, and balance to achieve superior results of existing work in-game
• In-depth knowledge of modeling techniques in Maya, or equivalent 3D software
• Demonstrable project management or team management and leadership experience
• Self-motivated, well-organized, and proactive about acquiring knowledge and learning new skills
• Experience working with version control software (such as Perforce, Git, etc.)

Preferred Attributes

• 6+ years of commercial game development experience.
• Multiple shipped commercial games on a variety of platforms, especially home consoles.
• Knowledge of Substance suite tools.
• Currently residing in Japan or able to work during standard Japanese business hours. 

What's The Next Step?

• Click the button below to send us an email and apply!
• We’ll invite all appropriate candidates to a video interview.
• We’ll keep all applicants informed of their status throughout the hiring process.
• Join a team and studio worth falling in love with!