Animation Artist

Rodeo FX is hiring an Animation Artist at their Montreal studio to join a team working at the top end of visual effects production. This role sits within the animation department and is responsible for delivering creature, character, and object performances that hold up against live-action plates in a high-end VFX pipeline. It suits an animator with a grounded understanding of physical performance and the discipline to execute across both realistic and stylized contexts.

About the Role

The Animation Artist works under the Animation Lead and Supervisor on shots spanning feature film production and episodic television, contributing to projects that demand hyper-realistic performances from creatures and characters. Day-to-day, this means blocking, refining, and delivering polished animation that clears technical review and hands off cleanly to downstream departments like lighting and compositing. The role requires someone comfortable moving between shot types and adapting quickly when creative direction shifts mid-production.

Key Responsibilities

• Deliver finished animation shots that meet the creative intent of the sequence and satisfy the technical specifications of the VFX pipeline.
• Apply core animation principles including timing, weight distribution, arcs, and posing across creature performances, mechanical rigs, and character animation.
• Interpret reference materials and supervisor direction to build performances with genuine emotional and physical credibility.
• Identify and troubleshoot rig or scene-level technical issues in coordination with the rigging and technical teams before they affect downstream departments.
• Maintain clean file structures, naming conventions, and export-ready scenes in line with studio pipeline standards.
• Participate actively in dailies, present work clearly, and integrate notes constructively to move shots forward.

What You Bring

• Demonstrable experience delivering animation shots in a professional VFX studio or animation studio environment.
• Proficiency in Maya, with working knowledge of animation tools standard to a production pipeline.
• A reel that shows range across at least two of the following: quadruped or biped creature animation, hard surface or mechanical animation, or hero character performance.
• Familiarity with shot-based production workflows, including handoff protocols between animation and lighting or compositing departments.
• The ability to give accurate time estimates and flag production risks before they become scheduling problems.

Why This Role

Rodeo FX has built a reputation for creature and character work that competes at the feature film level, with credits across major studio productions and prestige episodic television. The Montreal studio offers direct access to senior animators and a culture that treats internal knowledge-sharing as part of the job. For an animator looking to sharpen their craft on demanding, high-profile shots, this is a serious position at a serious company.

Apply now for the Animation Artist role at Rodeo FX and bring your reel to a team that will put it to work.