About the role
Location: Shanghai, China
Company Overview
Riot Games was established in 2006 by entrepreneurial gamers who believe that player-focused game development can result in great games. The company created League of Legends, which maintains a large global player base. The culture emphasizes being humble yet ambitious, taking play seriously, experimenting, and disregarding constraints.
Role Overview
The Senior Visual Story Development Artist for the Unpublished R&D Product will bring characters and stories to life through visual development and cinematic storytelling. Responsibilities include translating narrative beats into storyboards, animatics, and in-game cinematic content. The role involves contributing to character and creature design, worldbuilding, and establishing a cohesive foundation for visual narrative, reporting directly to the Art Director.
Responsibilities
- Drive visual development and storytelling by delivering illustrative, animated, and visual narrative content and writing story scripts to advance character development, worldbuilding, and the player experience.
- Shape character performance, camera composition, cinematography, and editing to create compelling cinematic experiences that align with the project's visual direction.
- Lead projects of varying scales and partner with production to ensure timely delivery and high standards of quality.
- Leverage cinematic tools and related workflows in Unreal Engine for visual development, storyboarding, animatics, and in-game cinematics.
- Partner with other artists to build the foundations of character design, story development, and visual worldbuilding.
- Use 2D, 3D, and other relevant tools and technologies to explore new approaches to visual storytelling and advance narrative expression inside and outside the game.
- Work directly with game development, marketing, and publishing teams to understand goals and deliver high-quality visual narrative solutions.
- Navigate ambiguous creative spaces with clear communication, adaptability, and sound judgment while sharing knowledge and supporting collaborators.
Required Qualifications
- 8+ years of professional experience in directing, concept art, storyboarding, or animation within the video game, film, or animation industries.
- Strong traditional and digital art foundations, with a deep understanding of human and creature anatomy, proportion, movement, and performance.
- Hands-on proficiency with creative software, including 2D and 3D modeling, layout, and animation tools, Unreal Engine, and video editing or compositing software.
- Proven ability to work independently in complex or ambiguous creative environments and develop ideas from early narrative beats into complete, clear, and executable visual concepts.
- Strong visual judgment, narrative awareness, and communication skills, with the ability to articulate creative intent and collaborate across disciplines.
- Fluency in Mandarin Chinese.
Desired Qualifications
- Practical and technical experience with animation pipelines, producing animatics, and final cinematics for high-quality entertainment content.
- Experience managing external partner teams or outsourcing workflows to meet project needs, visual style, and quality standards.
- Experience with character concept art and visual development for both in-game assets and out-of-game marketing or publishing content.
- Experience developing character performance, camera direction, and complete visual narratives from story beats, scripts, or written descriptions.
- Fluency in English.
Application Materials
- Versatile portfolio or demo reel demonstrating proficiency in 2D painting and design, storyboarding, visual development, and 3D workflows.
- Must include clear examples of individual contributions and the ability to explore different styles while maintaining consistent art direction.
- Candidates may be asked to complete an art test.