Visual Development Artist

Sony Pictures Animation is hiring a Visual Development Artist based in Los Angeles, California. This role sits within the pre-production art department, where the work centers on generating the visual language of feature animated films through character design, environment concepts, color scripts, and mood paintings. It suits an artist with a strong foundation in drawing and design who is equally at home building worlds on the page as they are refining a character’s silhouette through multiple rounds of notes.

About the Role

Visual Development Artists at Sony Pictures Animation work directly with directors, art directors, and production designers during the early and mid stages of feature animation production to define how a film looks and feels before it reaches the pipeline. The day-to-day work spans rough ideation sketches all the way through finished production illustrations, covering sets, props, characters, visual effects, and color styling. This is a union position covered by The Animation Guild.

Key Responsibilities

• Translate a director’s creative vision into drawn and painted concepts, including rough sketches, cleaned-up renderings, tonals, and digital imagery used in feature film presentations.
• Design characters and environments across a range of visual styles, from stylized cartoony aesthetics to grounded, realistic treatments depending on the production’s needs.
• Produce color scripts, color keys, and lighting studies that establish the emotional arc of a scene or sequence in the context of the full feature.
• Work with the Art Director and Production Designer to interpret script requirements as visual assets, covering set and location design, prop design, costume design, and special effects design.
• Deliver revised artwork promptly in response to director and department feedback within an active pre-production schedule.
• Apply knowledge of 2D to 3D translation to ensure that concept work functions practically within an animated feature pipeline.

What You Bring

• Demonstrated proficiency in drawing, including human and animal anatomy, perspective, composition, and color theory as applied to feature film design.
• A portfolio showing expertise in at least one of the following areas: set and location design, character and costume design, special effects design, or color styling.
• Working knowledge of Photoshop and Cintiq as primary production tools.
• The ability to manage time and output across multiple concurrent design tasks in a pre-production animation studio environment.
• Familiarity with 2D or 3D design tools that support the concept-to-production handoff.

Why This Role

Sony Pictures Animation has built a reputation for letting artists genuinely shape the look of their films, which makes the Visual Development Artist role here more creatively consequential than it is at many studios. The anticipated base salary for this position is $51.61/hour to $81.75/hour, with benefits pursuant to the collective bargaining agreement. For an artist looking to work on original feature animation with real creative weight behind the work, this is a rare opening at a studio with a proven track record.

Submit your resume and portfolio link to be considered for the Visual Development Artist role at Sony Pictures Animation.