Creature FX Artist – 1 Month Contract

Rodeo FX is hiring a Creature FX Artist on a one-month contract based in Montreal, Canada. This role sits within the Creature Effects department and focuses on producing photo-realistic simulations and deformations, including hair, fur, feathers, fabric, muscle, and skin systems, for characters and creatures across VFX production. It suits a mid-to-senior level artist with hands-on experience delivering creature work in a VFX pipeline environment.

About the Role

The Creature FX Artist works within a department that bridges rigging, animation, and lighting, ensuring that character surfaces and secondary motion hold up through the full VFX pipeline from simulation to final comp. Day to day, this person is building and iterating simulation setups, responding to notes from dailies, and running shot modeling passes to support deformation work. The position covers a one-month contract, with output tied directly to shot delivery schedules on active productions.

Key Responsibilities

• Build simulation setups for hair, fur, feathers, cloth, muscle, and skin systems tailored to the specific requirements of individual shots and characters.
• Launch and iterate simulations based on feedback received in dailies and internal shot reviews, adjusting parameters to meet both creative and technical targets.
• Perform shot modeling passes that support clean deformation and simulation output through downstream departments.
• Identify and resolve technical issues within simulations quickly, maintaining setup quality and cleanliness before submitting shots for supervisor review.
• Coordinate with Modeling, Rigging, Animation, and Lighting teams to ensure technical handoffs are clean and production timelines are met.
• Contribute to department documentation and best practices, and adapt to pipeline updates and new software features as they are introduced.

What You Bring

• Proven experience as a Creature FX Artist on feature film production, episodic television, or high-end commercial VFX work.
• Strong proficiency in simulation software such as Houdini, Maya nCloth, XGen, or equivalent tools used in creature and character FX pipelines.
• Demonstrated ability to deliver photo-realistic hair, fur, cloth, and muscle simulations that meet production quality standards under deadline pressure.
• Comfort working within a structured VFX pipeline, including version control, naming conventions, and shot-based asset management.
• Clear communication habits around task status, technical blockers, and schedule impacts when working with leads and production.

Why This Role

Rodeo FX has built a reputation over two decades as a Montreal-based studio with credits spanning major studio features and premium episodic television, giving artists here consistent exposure to high-profile creature work. For a Creature FX Artist looking to work within a department that values both technical craft and creative problem-solving, this is a studio with the pipeline and the project slate to back that up.

Apply now for the Creature FX Artist contract at Rodeo FX and bring your simulation work to production that counts.