3D Art Lead

The 3D Art Lead is responsible for the people, craft and technical development of the 3D discipline within StoryToys' mobile games development team.  The role combines strong people leadership with expert knowledge of end-to-end real-time 3D production, from modelling, UVs and texturing through rigging, skinning, animation, Unity implementation and mobile optimisation.  The role owns the health and continuous development of StoryToys' 3D production workflow, establishing scalable standards, identifying bottlenecks and working across Art, Engineering, Technical Art, Production, QA and Creative to deliver high-quality, efficient and maintainable 3D content.  The 3D Art Lead is also responsible for developing team capability through mentoring, performance management, recruitment and resource planning, while remaining technically credible and sufficiently hands-on to investigate problems, prototype solutions and provide effective artistic and technical direction.   Main Duties & Responsibilities   Leadership & People Management  Team Leadership lead, coach and support the 3D art team, creating an environment in which artists can do high-quality work, develop their skills and contribute effectively across projects.  People Management and Career Development: conduct regular 1:1s with direct reports, set expectations and development goals, provide timely performance feedback, identify training opportunities and performance interventions where required.  Recruitment and Onboarding: Participate in portfolio reviews, interviews, hiring decisions, onboarding, training and mentoring for 3D art roles, helping maintain a clear and consistent capability bar across the discipline.  Strategic Planning & Resource Management  Planning and Resourcing: Work with the Art Manager / Head of Art, Production and project leads to allocate 3D team members according to project needs, individual strengths and development goals. Forecast capability or capacity gaps and recommend resourcing or workflow solutions against the product roadmap.  Agile Delivery Support: Support task planning, estimation, prioritisation, dependency management and risk identification within an Agile production environment. Help ensure technical or art-pipeline concerns are represented during planning and delivery.   3D Pipeline Ownership & Process Improvement  Pipeline Ownership and Development: Own the health and continuous development of the 3D production pipeline from source asset creation through skinning, rigging, animation, Unity implementation and final runtime use. Establish and maintain best practices, technical standards, asset specifications, file structures, naming conventions, import settings and documentation.   Unity and Runtime Integration: Ensure 3D assets are correctly integrated into Unity and that workflows around prefabs, materials, animation, asset libraries, import settings and source files remain efficient, consistent and maintainable.   Technical Leadership & Quality Assurance  Technical Direction and Cross-Discipline Decision Making: Act as the 3D technical representative when working with Engineering, Technical Art, Production and other teams. Understand the implications of technical decisions on 3D asset creation, implementation, performance and maintainability. Question, challenge or propose alternatives when solutions create unnecessary production cost, technical debt or limitations for the Art team.   Technical and Craft Leadership: Review 3D work and provide clear, actionable feedback across modelling, topology, UVs, texturing, rigging, skinning, animation, Unity implementation and mobile optimisation. Maintain a strong quality bar while ensuring work remains appropriate to production and platform constraints.   Hands-On Technical and Production Support: Remain close enough to production to investigate problems, prototype solutions and contribute specialist knowledge or additional support as required. Retain sufficient hands-on proficiency to understand current workflows and provide credible technical and artistic direction.   Asset Optimisation Ensure assets are optimised for mobile platforms without compromising visual quality, user experience or adherence to Brand and Company guidelines. Work with Technical Art and Engineering to understand performance constraints and establish appropriate budgets and standards.   Cross-Functional Collaboration & Partnerships  Technical Art Partnership: Partner closely with Technical Artists, providing requirements and priorities from the 3D discipline and collaborating on tools, automation, shaders, performance improvements and engine-side solutions. The 3D Art Lead is accountable for the effectiveness of the overall 3D production workflow; Technical Artists provide specialist technical implementation and engineering-facing expertise.   Collaboration Work closely with designers, programmers, technical artists, producers and QA to ensure 3D assets are implemented successfully, dependencies are understood and risks are resolved early. Communicate art requirements clearly and negotiate technical trade-offs constructively.   Continuous Improvement & Risk Management  Pipeline Troubleshooting and Risk Identification: Investigate recurring or high-impact issues affecting 3D production and implementation. Determine whether problems originate in asset creation, workflow, Unity configuration, tools or engineering systems, and coordinate the appropriate people to resolve them. Identify risks early enough to be addressed during planning rather than late in production.  3D Track Development: Support the growth of the 3D discipline within the Art Department by identifying skills gaps, training needs, workflow improvements, tooling opportunities and future capability requirements.  Key Skills, Knowledge & Experience  3D Art & Production  • Extensive professional experience in 3D art for games, animation, interactive media or a closely related field, including ex