Character Artist

Hello, I am a solo indie developer who is looking for a 3D artist to create a stylized low-poly character and outfit pieces for my in-development fashion dress-up game, built in Unity 6.3 (URP). Players dress a character in mix-and-match outfits, with clothing layered on top of each other (for example a jacket over a top).

Art style

Retro-leaning, pixelated 3D (rendered at 540p and upscaled with hard pixel edges) with semi-realistic, readable faces. My primary reference is FabStyle (Nintendo 3DS, 2011): painted makeup and features on the face texture, soft high-key boutique lighting, and characters that pop against bright, soft-focus backgrounds. My secondary reference is Girls' Fashion Shoot (Nintendo 3DS, 2013). I would also like your own influence. I am not looking for an exact one to one of these styles, I would love to see your take.

All work must be original. The reference is for style only; please do not extract or reuse assets from existing games. (AI policy, e.g. "No AI-generated models or textures.")

What I’m looking for

• Stylized low-poly modeling for a pixelated, 3DS-inspired look
• Clothing and outfit modeling: tops, bottoms, outerwear, accessories, and hair built from alpha-clipped hair cards
• Game-ready topology within tight triangle budgets
• UV unwrapping and hand-painted texturing with flat color (no painted lighting), including semi-realistic face and makeup painting
• Rigging and skinning/weight painting, including clothing to an existing rig
• Preparing assets for Unity (FBX, Humanoid rigs); Blender preferred
• Good communication and reliability

Working with our shaders

The game uses custom shaders that add the shading and colored shadows, then renders at a low resolution (540p) for a pixelated look. A few things change how assets should be made:

• No painted lighting. Keep color textures flat. A little baked ambient occlusion in creases is fine, but no painted highlights or strong shadows.
• Faces are painted flat. Paint features and makeup without shading; the face shader lights the face softly from the front. Keep the face as its own material. I will adjust the face normals on import, so you don't need to.
• Makeup as layers (if possible). Eyeliner, lashes, blush and lips as separate texture layers, so makeup can be customized in game.
• Skin and fabric are separate. Use separate materials for skin, fabric, face and hair. The shader tints shadows differently on each.
• Hair cards use cutout transparency only. Hard-edged alpha, no soft semi-transparent fades.
• No normal maps. Fine surface detail doesn't survive 540p; put the effort into shape and color.
• Silhouettes matter. A rim light outlines every shape, so a clean silhouette is worth more than surface detail.

I will send you a small Unity preview scene with the shaders and pixelation already set up, so you can check your work in the final look before delivering.

Stage 1: Paid trial task

I want to start with one small paid task so we can both see if we're a good fit.

Task: Create one face and one original two-layer outfit (for example, a top worn over a base layer) in our art style. Fit and skin both to our provided temporary base mannequin rig (a placeholder until the final base character is made), and deliver a Unity-ready FBX with textures. Please also include wireframe renders, UV layouts and the texture sheets so I may review topology and texture use. Please paint eyeliner, lashes, blush and lips as separate face texture layers, and follow the material naming in my spec (\_Skin, \_Fabric, \_Face, \_Hair).

Budget: 625 USD

The selected candidate will receive the temporary female base mannequin (.blend and FBX), the export and naming spec, a style reference board, and my Artist Preview Scene (a Unity project or a standalone viewer that loads .glb files) to review before committing.

Technical targets: head and face 1,000–1,500 triangles; each clothing layer 500–1,500 triangles, with the two-layer outfit under 3,000 combined. Face texture 512–1024 px on its own material, clothing 512 px with baked ambient occlusion, no normal maps. Skinned to our existing armature (bone names unchanged), at most 4 bone influences per vertex. These targets may be adjusted after the trial.