2D Artist

We are looking for a talented 2D Artist [Gaming Experience] with a strong specialty in creating richly detailed, realistic hand-painted icons and game assets. You will be responsible for producing high-quality artwork that brings characters, items, skills, and UI elements to life with a painterly, tactile feel. The ideal candidate is equally comfortable working in Photoshop and Illustrator for production art, and in Figma for collaborative UI design and asset handoff.

Key Responsibilities

Illustration & Icon Art

• Create high-fidelity, realistic hand-painted icons for items, skills, characters, and collectibles

• Produce detailed game assets — weapons, armour, potions, spells, environment props — with rich texture and depth

• Maintain a consistent painterly art style across all icon sets and asset libraries

• Illustrate hero artwork, card art, and feature visuals as required

UI Design & Asset Preparation

• Design and iterate on game UI screens in Figma — menus, HUDs, card layouts, inventory panels

• Prepare and export production-ready assets optimised for Unity (atlases, slices, naming conventions)

• Create icon frames, borders, rarity indicators, and UI chrome elements that complement the hand-painted style

• Ensure art and UI assets meet technical specs across multiple resolutions and aspect ratios

Collaboration & Production

• Work closely with the art director to establish and maintain the visual style guide

• Collaborate with developers on asset integration and Unity UI workflow

• Maintain organised, well-labelled file structures and deliver clean, layered PSD/AI source files

• Review in-engine implementations and flag visual inconsistencies

Required Skills

Core Artistic Skills

Photoshop

• Expert-level hand-painting technique in Photoshop — creating realistic textures, lighting, materials (metal, leather, fabric, stone, organic)

• Strong digital illustration fundamentals — form, value, colour theory, and composition

• Ability to create icons that read clearly at small sizes while retaining detail at full resolution

• Experience producing consistent icon sets across large libraries (100+ icons)

Adobe Illustrator

• Vector illustration for scalable UI elements, icon outlines, borders, and decorative frames

• Ability to combine vector structure with raster texture for hybrid icon workflows

Figma

• Must-have: UI layout, component organisation, and asset handoff for developers

• Experience structuring design systems for games — frames, variants, and auto-layout for UI components

• Clear annotation and specification of interactive states and asset requirements

Game Art & Production

• 5+ years of experience as a 2D Game Artist, with a focus on icon art and hand-painted assets

• Strong portfolio demonstrating realistic hand-painted game icons across multiple genres

• Experience preparing assets for Unity — sprite atlases, correct pivot points, naming conventions

• Understanding of game art pipelines and technical constraints (texture budgets, resolution tiers)

• Familiarity with animated UI feedback and icon states (idle, hover, active, greyed-out)

Nice to Have

• Experience with card-based or strategy games

• Concept art or character illustration skills

• Basic After Effects or Spine 2D for icon animations

• Familiarity with Notion or equivalent for production tracking

Portfolio Must Show

• Realistic hand-painted icons — weapons, consumables, skills, character portraits, or similar

• Demonstrated range of materials and lighting styles within a consistent art direction

• Complete icon sets (not just individual standout pieces) that show production consistency

• UI screens or components designed in Figma or a comparable tool

• Before/after or style guide examples that demonstrate adherence to a visual language

• Applications without a portfolio will not be reviewed