Manager, 3D Character Art - Unpublished R&D Product

As a Manager, 3D Character Art in the Singapore Studio for Riot’s Unpublished R&D Product, you will channel your knowledge of color and light to explore and produce the best player value for players.

You’ll guide the exploration and execution of the 3D character content. Through your expertise, you’ll mentor and level-up the craft and game developer skills of your 3D team. You will work with the Associate Art Director to implement a 3D style that fits within the art pillars and punctuates the game design.

You’ll expand and support a high-performing external team and give them guidance and knowledge. You will set high expectations, push for growth for both each individual artist and the entire team, and streamline the production efficiency. You will use your broad knowledge of art, craft, technique, and people management, to set clear goals for your team and make sure the process of delivering those goals is as smooth as possible for your team and their stakeholders. You will ensure your team stays motivated and empowered to take ownership of creativity, you will coach your team to be a triple A team.

You will work closely with Product Leads, Delivery Leads, Stakeholders, and the Associate Art Director to stay aligned on vision and priorities. Quickly mediate and resolve craft disagreements and misalignments. Prioritize the craft’s health and support, above personally contributing to art production. Run and manage healthy and productive craft review sessions. Work closely with the other craft leads on your team to cultivate a great cohesive culture and ensure a consistent quality and style.

Responsibilities:

• As a Manager, 3D Character Art on the team, you will oversee and be accountable for the quality of the work the team delivers and set the bar for excellence.
• Provide craft direction for your team.
• Provide as-needed support of all aspects of 3D production process; from set-up through production and troubleshooting
• You will balance visual satisfaction and gameplay clarity.
• Provide hands on craft support to the product where needed
• Support the Associate Art Director on emergent tasks where needed.
• Own the full lifecycle management of your team members - from selection and onboarding through performance development, feedback, and exits where necessary - ensuring the right people and skills are in place to deliver at Riot’s quality bar.
• You will establish and maintain a highly engaged, creative, and motivated culture to unleash artists’ potential.
• You will drive and improve the rituals in your team to support high-quality craft delivery and enable efficient growth of your team.
• Collaborate with the Associate Art Director, art discipline leads, and Production teams in Singapore and Los Angeles to maintain consistency in workflow, and quality expectations.
• You will be vigilantly finding creative and effective solutions to eliminate complex problems.

Required Qualifications:

• 5+ years of professional experience in 3D Character art for games, including creating high-quality stylized characters, cosmetics, or other 3D assets.
• 2+ years in a lead or management role, providing artistic direction, feedback, mentorship, and guidance to individual artists or teams.
• Experience shipping game titles as a Senior or Lead 3D Artist, with responsibility for artistic quality and consistency.
• Strong understanding of modeling, sculpting, and texturing fundamentals, including stylized hand-painted techniques, PBR workflows, and their application in modern game engines.
• Strong artistic foundation in anatomy, shape language, form, proportion, composition, color theory, and design.
• Proficiency with industry-standard 3D art tools such as Maya, 3ds Max, ZBrush, Substance Painter, and Photoshop.
• Experience reviewing and guiding 3D art production, including providing clear, actionable feedback to internal artists and external vendors to ensure assets meet established quality and style standards.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills, with experience working across art disciplines such as concept art, animation, technical art, and production.

Desired Qualifications:

• AAA game development experience, particularly creating stylized characters, skins, or cosmetic content.
• Experience working with distributed teams or external co-development partners across regions.
• Multilingual ability (Mandarin or other regional languages) to communicate effectively with partner studios.

Our Perks:

• Full relocation support
• Full health insurance for you, your spouse and children
• Open paid time off
• Retirement benefits with company matching
• Life insurance, parental leave, plus short-term and long-term disability
• Play Fund so you can broaden and deepen your knowledge of our players and community through games
• We will double down on your donations of time and money to non-profits

Don’t forget to include a resume and cover letter. We receive a lot of applications, but we’ll notice a fun, well-written intro that shows us you take play seriously.