Principal Environment Artist/ Lead
- Compensation
- Not disclosed
- Location
- Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal
- Work setup
- Remote
- Seniority
- Principal
- Employment
- Contract
- Experience
- Not specified
- Category
- Creative
- Posted
Skills
Must have
- Expert knowledge of 3D environment creation, including both hard surface and organic modelling.
- Strong understanding of colour theory, composition, lighting, scale, and environmental storytelling.
- Excellent low-poly modelling and topology optimisation skills.
- Advanced UV mapping and texture creation experience.
- Strong understanding of mobile optimisation techniques.
- Experience creating lighting setups within Unity.
- Ability to create simple environment animations and visual effects.
- Experience using AI tools for image generation, concept exploration, texture creation, material generation, and 3D asset generation.
- Comfortable working with proprietary tools, scripts, shaders, and internal production pipelines.
- Ability to work effectively from briefs, mood boards, concept art, or AI-generated visual references.
- Excellent time management with the ability to consistently meet production deadlines.
Nice to have
- Experience shipping live service or mobile games.
- Experience working on stylised game environments.
- Experience developing or improving AI-assisted art pipelines.
- Knowledge of procedural content generation tools and workflows.
- Familiarity with performance profiling and optimisation techniques for Unity.
- Experience contributing to studio-wide art standards, documentation, and best practices.
Full description
Job Title: Principal Environment Artist/ LeadLocation: Remote, UK OR Hybrid Lisbon, EU
Reporting to: Game Experience Art Lead
Salary: £45k - £70k per annum/ €53,295 – € 82,748 per annum
Contract: Full time, 6 Month FTC (with possibility to move to permanent)
Company Overview
At Lockwood, our vision is to bring people together through Avakin Life, where players can play, share, and socialize in one of the world's largest and most populous metaverses. Avakin Life provides an immersive 3D life simulation experience for millions of users worldwide.
With a focus on innovation and collaboration, Lockwood offers a flexible and creative environment that empowers our teams to push the boundaries of what’s possible. We provide competitive benefits, including an employee share scheme, making Lockwood an exciting destination for those passionate about shaping the future of digital experiences. This position is available as a fully remote role, though there may be occasional meetups for social interaction and strategic sessions.
Role Summary
As a Principal Environment Artist, you will be responsible for defining and delivering world-class, immersive environments for Avakin Life, while driving artistic quality, technical excellence, and innovation across the environment art discipline. You will lead by example through hands-on creation, mentoring, production planning, and the adoption of AI-assisted workflows. Working closely with Art Direction, Experience Design, Technical Art, and Production, you will help shape the visual identity of the game while improving team workflows, scalability, and efficiency.
Key ResponsibilitiesEnvironment Art & Visual Development
- Translate creative briefs into compelling AI-generated visual concepts, enriching the original vision with innovative ideas while remaining aligned to the creative direction.
- Transform briefs, concepts, mood boards, concept art, and AI-generated visual explorations into polished, production-ready 3D environments that support gameplay, narrative, and player experience.
- Create visually stunning and immersive environments for Avakin Life, including interiors, exteriors, landmarks, and interactive spaces.
- Produce high-quality hard surface and organic 3D assets that meet both artistic and technical standards.
- Design and create high-quality textures and materials that achieve a cohesive visual style while remaining optimised for mobile platforms.
- Deliver lighting, simple environment animation, and VFX that enhance mood, atmosphere, and player immersion.
- Optimise environments and assets to achieve excellent performance across supported mobile devices without compromising visual quality.