Sr. Technical Character Artist I

Axon•Seattle, WA

About The Position

Axon’s VR team develops immersive, scenario-based public-safety training designed to make training more accessible, memorable, and frequent. The Senior Technical Character Artist is the bridge between art and technology for non-playable characters in standalone-headset VR training simulators. This senior role owns character creation and character technology end to end, from MetaHuman-based workflows to parametric clothing and materials, while helping the art team deliver high-quality content within technical constraints. The role works with Art, Engineering, Content, UX, User Research, Tech Art, and Animation to create believable characters that support empathy, coping, and de-escalation training. The position is expected to work independently and take direction from the Lead Technical Artist and Art Director, documenting pipelines and setting standards while contributing to a collaborative team culture. The role is based in Seattle, Washington, and has no direct reports.

Requirements

Have shipped at least one title as a Technical Character Artist or Character Artist.
Have strong character-art skills and a good eye for anatomy, form, and likeness.
Have experience with the MetaHuman character-creation pipeline.
Have experience with parametric clothing, including working knowledge of Chaos Cloth for creating clothing inside Unreal Engine.
Have experience creating materials via graph or code.
Have experience using AI-assisted workflows such as Cursor, Claude Code, or Tripo.
Have experience building tools and automation using AI toolsets.
Have experience creating realistic human characters.
Provide a portfolio demonstrating past work, including character art and other relevant materials.
Have a track record of working independently and owning deliverables, including in ambiguous environments.
Be able to work with cross-functional teams, including Engineering, Design, and Product.
Have 5+ years of experience working in the gaming and/or VR industry.
Have 5+ years of Unity or Unreal game-engine experience.

Nice To Haves

Unity experience (strongly preferred).
Experience with VR or mobile VR.
Unreal Engine experience.
Skinning and weight-painting expertise, including corrective blendshapes.
Blendshape and facial-rig knowledge, such as ARKit-52 or similar.
Experience with sculpting and texturing tools such as ZBrush and Substance Painter/Designer.
Experience with cloth-authoring tools such as Marvelous Designer.
Hair or groom experience using cards.
Custom URP shader experience for skin, eyes, hair, and fabric.
Mobile optimization experience, including LODs, topology, bone and blendshape budgets, and texture atlasing.

Responsibilities

Create realistic human characters from concept through engine-ready assets.
Own and evolve the MetaHuman-based character creation pipeline.
Build and maintain parametric clothing workflows, including Chaos Cloth setup for clothing created inside Unreal Engine.
Skin and weight-paint characters and build corrective blendshapes.
Author materials and shaders through node graphs or code that meet mobile hardware constraints, including custom URP shaders for skin, eyes, hair, and fabric.
Optimize characters for mobile through LODs, topology, bone and blendshape budgets, and texture atlasing.
Build tools and automation using AI toolsets to accelerate character production.
Use AI-assisted tools such as Cursor, Claude Code, and Tripo to accelerate production without compromising quality.
Meet visual targets within polygon, texture, and draw-call budgets.
Create production pipelines that improve rapid integration and testing.
Document pipelines, set standards, and communicate methods to artists and software engineers.
Collaborate with Tech Art and Animation so characters rig, deform, and animate well.
Attend stand-ups and play tests, share progress, and provide feedback on the experience.