Environment Concept Artist

Experienced solo developer seeking a concept artist for an unannounced rogueish strategy game, working title Skystone.
In Skystone players command a flying castle of mages battling across a fractured fantasy sky. The castle is very stylized, more of a raft made of connected floating stones, and the focus of this contract will be visual development of the castles, environment, skybox, colors and lighting.
The game is in playable prototype state but needs a visual identity strong enough to guide future 3D environment artists. Selected candidates will sign an NDA before receiving full design materials, including gameplay footage and design brief.
The target style is painterly stylized 3D, in the family of Breath of the Wild and Genshin Impact for surface and material language — soft shading, hand-painted-feeling textures, not cel-shaded with hard outlines. The composition philosophy draws from JRPGs like Final Fantasy IX and Dragon Quest XI: rich, lived-in environments that let simpler character silhouettes read clearly. A core pillar: playspace vs background. Gameplay is generally from a three quarters view which makes the characters pretty small on screen so the walkable gameplay area must be simple, clean, and readable when zoomed out. Tower sides, decorative elements, and skybox should carry the detail and reward closer looks.
Deliverables:
- Castle hex silhouette and form-language exploration ( The castles are made of floating hex-topped towers connected by bridges )
- 3-4 paintovers of current prototype screenshots showing target visual quality
- Color and lighting language for ~5 environment moods ( time of day, different biomes, sketchy and using previous paintovers )
- 2-3 finished hero illustrations (at least one suitable as a basis for Steam capsule art — likely a three-quarters view emphasizing the tactical layout)
- Contribute to style pillars and annotated references
I estimate this project to take around 14 working days, but am flexible on the timeline. Can do milestone based payments.
No AI generated art please.
Skills & Requirements

Requirements:
- Demonstrated experience with stylized 3D-friendly concept art. Portfolio should include work where concepts clearly informed or could inform 3D production. Strong silhouettes, buildable forms, material logic that holds up in three dimensions.
- Environment and prop concept portfolio. This contract is environment-focused; pure character illustrators aren't the right fit for this work.
- Ability to do paintovers on existing 3D screenshots. Examples in portfolio preferred.
- Comfortable contributing to art direction. This is a vis-dev contract and will require proposing and defending creative decisions.
- Reliable communication and milestone delivery. Async-friendly, can commit to an agreed upon check-in cadence.
Nice to have:
- Shipped game credits, especially in stylized 3D titles
- Experience with strategy, roguelike, or tactics games (understanding of readability constraints in those genres)
- Background or interest in painterly JRPG aesthetics
- Familiarity with Unreal Engine pipeline (helpful for grounded paintovers, not required)
- Color script or lighting key experience
How to Apply

Please send a portfolio link and a couple of sentences on what about the project interests you to: jobs@spikepitgames.com
Please include your name in the subject line, thank you!