The Cartoon Recruit Blog

Attention recruits! And welcome to the Cartoon Recruit blog where I collect job opportunity that might go overlooked while reflecting on the past week in animation. Overall this past week’s news makes me feel a bit more optimistic about studio demand for new projects.

We’ve seen yet another record set by KPop Demon Hunters, a medium-sized interview about Liza Hanawalt’s contributions to the new series Long Story Short, and a (not-so) bold new strategy at Disney: Pursuing young men as a demographic.

Three Things:

KPop Demon Hunters slays at the box office

During a two-day singalong event, Netflix’s hit film had the highest showing of any movie this past weekend across North America, earning between $18 to $20 million according to sources obtained by the Hollywood Reporter.

Liza Hanawalt on Long Story Short’s art direction

In an exclusive interview with Cartoon Brew, Lisa Hanawalt (who defined the look of Bojack Horseman and her own show Tuca & Bertie) described the design process behind Long Story Short. In her words, “I never want to just repeat what I’ve done before. I’m an artist, and I get bored easily.”

Putting the Z in Disney?

While The Walt Disney Corporation earned billions of dollars over the past decade on their investments in Star Wars and Marvel, the pace of profits appears to be drying up. As a result, Variety reports that the House of Mouse is looking for new original concepts to bring in young men between the ages of 13 to 28.

Ten Jobs:

Senior Producer (Color) at Company3 (Hybrid from New York City, New York) “The Senior Producer is responsible for overseeing the color workflow for assigned Colorists, managing day-to-day project execution, client relationships, and coordination with internal teams.”

Creature Supervisor at Industrial Light and Magic (Hybrid from San Francisco, California) “We are looking for a real-time Creature Supervisor to supervise a team of exceptional artists by both personally setting the bar in terms of skill-level, and managing artists’ performance.”

Senior 3D Character Artist (Summoners Rift) at Riot Games (On-Site from Los Angeles, California) “As a Senior Character Artist at Riot, you will bring champions to life by crafting and texturing high and low poly models.”

Concept Artist at Electronic Arts (Hybrid from Orlando, Florida) “Visual storytelling is the key task of the Concept Artist. They imagine characters and worlds off the page and bring the story to life.”

Senior 3D FX Supervisor (Paw Patrol) at Guru Studio (Hybrid from Toronto, Ontario) “As a Senior 3D FX Supervisor at Guru Studio, you will lead the FX department across one or more animated productions—overseeing the development and execution of stylized, story-driven FX.”

2D FX Supervisor (Harmony) at WildBrain (Hybrid from Vancouver, British Columbia) “Reporting to the Producer, in this role you will be responsible for establishing workflows, managing the FX team, and training artists.”

Senior Lighting Artist at Hasbro (On-Site from Montreal, Quebec) “As a Senior Lighting Artist, you will be responsible for designing, implementing, and optimizing lighting systems that bring depth, atmosphere, and emotion to our game environments.”

Harmony Rigger at Sun & Moon Studios (Remote from Bristol, England) “You’ll be part of the team creating 2D Toon Boom rigs for characters and props ready for the animation team.”

Texture Artist at Brown Bag Films (On-Site from Dublin, Leinster) “We are looking for a Texture Artist to join our team who will create high-quality textures and shaders that meet the artistic and narrative goals set by the Art Director, while adhering to technical specifications and project constraints.”

Layout Lead Artist (CG Short Film) at Triggerfish (Remote from the UK) “Oversees the staging, camera work, and composition for all shots, translating storyboards and animatics into production-ready 3D scenes.”

Didn’t find the opportunity you were looking for? In the past week, we added 66 new jobs to CartoonRecruit.com! That’s two less than last week, but still nothing to sneeze at.

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Signing off for now

That’s all for this week, recruits! Have thoughts or feedback about our project? Feel free to message me by email at mike@cartoonrecruit.com, or send a DM to our LinkedIn page or @cartoonrecruit.com on Bluesky. I will do my best to reply to every non-spam message I receive.

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