ForthStar Senior Character Animator

Thank you for your interest in Forth Star. We are a premier game development studio on a trajectory to redefine the mobile gaming landscape. Established by the industry veterans behind Playdemic, our studio is built on the philosophy that extraordinary games are born from the intersection of creative freedom and technical excellence.

We are currently seeking a Senior Character Animator to serve as a cornerstone of our Art Department. This is a high-impact role designed for a professional who breathes life into digital assets, ensuring every movement—from a subtle facial twitch to an explosive combat sequence—resonates with personality, humor, and visceral impact.

Category Details

Company Name Forth Star

Position Title Senior Character Animator

Job Type Full-Time, Permanent

Location Altrincham, Manchester, UK (On-site)

Salary Range £45,000 – £55,000 per annum

Department Art

Work Schedule 4-Day Work Week (Subject to annual review)

Required Status Must have existing Right to Work in the UK

Founded in 2023 by Paul Gouge and Alex Rigby, Forth Star is not your typical startup. We are a team of exceptionally talented veterans dedicated to the craft of big, free-to-play hits. Our mission is singular: to create great games that millions of people love to play every day for years.

At Forth Star, we believe the best work happens when top-tier talent is given the autonomy to innovate. Our culture is defined by:

• Excellence: A relentless pursuit of “better” in every frame and line of code.
• Collaboration: Breaking down silos to ensure art, code, and design move in perfect synchronization.
• Player-Centric Design: We serve our players by creating essential daily entertainment that is both polished and engaging.
• The Inspirational Workspace: Our high-spec Altrincham studio is designed to be an incubator for creativity, fostering spontaneous teamwork that remote setups often miss.

As a Senior Character Animator, you are more than a technician; you are a storyteller through motion. You will be responsible for the full animation lifecycle, ensuring that characters feel grounded in their world while maintaining the “snappiness” required for high-end mobile gameplay.

You will be the architect of movement. You are expected to build robust, animator-friendly rigs for a variety of character types and environmental objects.

• Utilization of Biped, CAT, or custom bone systems/solvers.
• Precise skinning to ensure mesh integrity during extreme deformations.
• Creation of expressive facial rigs that convey humor and emotion.

Your primary focus is the delivery of world-class keyframe animation.

• Crafting “game-feel” through weight, timing, and anticipation.
• Developing signature move sets, combat sequences, and idle cycles that define a character’s “brand.”
• Iterating on prototypes to find the fun early in the development cycle.

We don’t just “throw assets over the wall.” You will take ownership of how your work performs in-engine.

• Setting up and managing Mecanim/Animator controllers.
• Constructing complex blend trees and state machines.
• Configuring Ragdoll physics for specialized death or impact scenarios.

You will sit at the heart of the production pipeline, collaborating daily with:

• Game Designers: To ensure animations match the rhythm and timing of gameplay mechanics.
• Programmers: To ensure technical displacement and performance optimization are maintained.

• A Stellar Showreel: We need to see your work in action. Your reel should demonstrate a mastery of weight, physics, and character personality across different archetypes.
• Software Expertise: Professional-level mastery of Autodesk Maya.
• The “Twelve Principles”: A deep-rooted understanding of squash and stretch, staging, and follow-through.
• Adaptability: The ability to pivot between highly stylized, “squashy” animation and more grounded, realistic movement.
• Location: You must be based in the UK and able to commute to our…