3D Character Artist – AI-Assisted MetaHuman Stylisation | AAA Quality | Long-Term Opportunity

We are an emerging animation studio building high-quality cinematic content using **Unreal Engine and modern AI-assisted production workflows**. We are looking for an experienced **3D Character Artist** who can take the **Unreal Engine MetaHuman base mesh** and transform it into a distinctive, production-ready stylised character suitable for **AAA-quality cinematic animation**. This is **not** a traditional character-modelling position, and we are specifically **not looking for generic MetaHuman customisation**. ### What We Are Looking For The ideal artist understands how to combine: * **MetaHuman as a production-ready base** * Modern **AI-assisted character design and 3D workflows** * Sculpting, texturing and procedural tools where required * Custom facial and body stylisation * High-quality hair/groom workflows * Production-ready clothing * Hair and cloth simulation * Unreal Engine character optimisation * Cinematic-quality materials and shaders The objective is to retain the technical advantages of the **MetaHuman ecosystem—rigging, facial animation, performance capture and Unreal compatibility—while pushing the visual identity far beyond the recognisable/default MetaHuman appearance.** ### Key Responsibilities You will be expected to: * Stylise existing **MetaHuman base characters** into unique hero-quality characters. * Develop faces with a strong and recognisable artistic identity rather than typical MetaHuman aesthetics. * Use **modern AI-assisted workflows** where appropriate to accelerate concept exploration, texture development, detailing or character iteration. * Create or adapt **AAA-quality hair/grooms**. * Develop production-ready costumes and clothing. * Configure **hair and cloth simulation** for Unreal Engine. * Maintain MetaHuman-compatible topology, rigging and facial-animation requirements wherever possible. * Create high-quality skin, eyes, hair, fabric and character materials. * Ensure characters hold up in **cinematic close-ups**. * Deliver clean, organised, production-ready Unreal Engine assets. * Work collaboratively with our animation and virtual-production pipeline. ### This Is NOT We are **not** looking for someone whose workflow is simply: MetaHuman Creator → change face presets → change hair → change clothes → deliver. We are also not looking for an unnecessarily long traditional workflow where every character is sculpted, retopologised and rebuilt entirely from scratch when newer AI-assisted and procedural techniques can achieve the required result more efficiently. We want someone who understands how to combine **AI + traditional artistic judgement + MetaHuman + Unreal Engine** to create distinctive characters efficiently without sacrificing quality. ### Quality Bar Characters should be suitable for: * AAA game cinematics * High-end animation * Streaming-quality productions * Cinematic Unreal Engine rendering * Facial performance capture * Close-up dialogue scenes The final character should **not immediately look like a standard MetaHuman**. ### Preferred Experience Strong experience with several of the following is highly desirable: * Unreal Engine 5 * MetaHuman * MetaHuman Identity / Animator * Character Creator / Reallusion workflows * ZBrush * Blender * Maya * Substance 3D Painter * Marvelous Designer * CLO * Houdini * Groom / hair workflows * Chaos Cloth * Unreal Engine character shaders * AI-assisted concept, texture or 3D workflows You do **not** need to use every tool above. We care more about the **quality, efficiency and intelligence of your workflow** than a specific software stack. ### Long-Term Opportunity This is intended to be an **ongoing collaboration**, not just a single-character commission. We are building a growing library of characters for narrative animation projects and would like to develop a long-term relationship with an artist who understands our visual direction and pipeline. We are also **flexible on rate and willing to increase the rate for the right artist** who can consistently deliver the level of quality we are looking for. ### When Applying Please include: 1. Your strongest **stylised or realistic character portfolio**. 2. Examples of characters created for **Unreal Engine**, if available. 3. Examples showing **before/after transformation of MetaHuman or production-ready base meshes**, if applicable. 4. Hair/groom examples. 5. Clothing and cloth-simulation examples. 6. A short explanation of your **AI-assisted character workflow**. 7. Which parts of your workflow you would automate or accelerate using AI. 8. Your typical turnaround time for a cinematic hero character. 9. Your hourly or project-based rate. **Important:** Please do not send a generic proposal. In the first line of your application, briefly explain **how you would make a MetaHuman stop looking like a MetaHuman while preserving its production advantages**. We are particularly interested in artists who think beyond conventional workflows and can help us build a **fast, scalable, high-quality next-generation character pipeline**.