Character Surfacing Trainee

Skydance Media is hiring a Character Surfacing Trainee at its animation studio in Madrid. This role sits within the character surfacing department, where the work is focused on building and painting textures for 3D characters to match the visual style of an animated feature production. It is a strong fit for students finishing a degree in animation or a related field who are ready to move from coursework into a real production pipeline.

About the Role

The Character Surfacing Trainee works inside Skydance Animation’s Madrid studio, contributing directly to character look development on an animated feature project. Day to day, this means creating procedural and hand-painted textures, working from concept art, and iterating on character surfaces under the guidance of an Art Director and Visual Effects Supervisor. The role runs a minimum of three months on-site, five days a week at 35 hours per week.

Key Responsibilities

• Create and refine stylized character textures in Substance Painter and Substance Designer, following established look development guidelines for the production.
• Build procedural texture networks in Substance Designer and apply outputs within Substance Painter or Houdini as required by the animation pipeline.
• Paint stylized textures from character concepts, matching the specific visual language of the show.
• Manage UV workflows using Rizom or UVLayout within a Maya-based character surfacing pipeline.
• Work alongside the Art Director and Visual Effects Supervisor to achieve the target look across a range of character styles.
• Support other surfacing team members as needed and follow tutor direction throughout the placement.

What You Bring

• Current enrollment in the final year of an Associate, Bachelor, or Master’s program at an accredited institution is required.
• Working knowledge of Substance Painter, Maya, and UV workflow tools including Rizom or UVLayout.
• Demonstrated artistic or technical aptitude related to 3D animation, shown through a portfolio or coursework.
• High level of English proficiency; Spanish is a plus.
• Ability to work on-site in Madrid for a minimum three-month period, Monday through Friday.

Why This Role

Skydance Media has built a reputation for investing in emerging animation talent, and this traineeship includes direct access to studio leadership and structured mentorship within a working feature animation production. The program is paid and offers hands-on experience inside a professional animation studio pipeline that is difficult to access at this stage of a career.

Apply now for the Character Surfacing Trainee role at Skydance Media and take your first step into feature animation production.