3D Character Rigger & Animator

3D Character Rigger & Animator | Orbital Ignition
Orbital Ignition is an early-stage game studio currently developing Taliara’s Rise, an original mobile game IP.
We’re looking for a 3D Character Rigger & Animator to join our creative team and take ownership of bringing our characters to life — from building production-ready rigs to creating expressive gameplay animations.
What we’re looking for
We’re looking for someone experienced in character rigging and 3D animation for games who can:
Build clean, reliable character rigs from 3D models
Set up skeletons, controls, constraints, and deformation systems
Handle skinning and weight painting
Prepare characters for efficient real-time animation
Create expressive idle, locomotion, reaction, interaction, and gameplay animations
Create clean animation loops and transitions
Develop reusable rigs where appropriate across different characters
Troubleshoot deformation, rigging, and animation issues
Export and integrate animation-ready assets into Unity
Collaborate closely with 3D artists, designers, and developers
Help establish the project's rigging and animation pipeline
Experience with Blender, Maya, or equivalent 3D software is required. Experience with Unity animation workflows is strongly preferred.
The kind of artist we want
We’re looking for someone who understands both the technical side of rigging and the creative side of animation.
Taliara’s Rise has a colorful, stylized 3D world, so we're particularly interested in someone who understands strong posing, timing, weight, anticipation, exaggeration, and character personality.
Our animations need to remain highly readable on mobile while giving each character a distinctive personality.
You should be comfortable taking a character from:
3D model → rig → skinning → animation → game-ready asset.
Where we are
Orbital Ignition is currently in the pre-funding / development stage.
This is currently an unpaid opportunity, as the team is working voluntarily while we develop the MVP and prepare the project for funding.
Our goal is to secure funding and transition the team into paid roles as the project progresses.
Why join us?
Help define the rigging and animation pipeline of an original game IP
Bring original characters to life from the ground up
Have meaningful creative input into character movement and personality
Take ownership of characters from rigging through final animation
Build portfolio experience on a commercial mobile game project
Work with an international creative team
Opportunity to grow with the project
Interested?
Send us your demo reel/portfolio, LinkedIn profile, CV, or relevant work, along with a short introduction about yourself and your experience.
We'd especially like to see examples of character rigs, deformation/skinning, and stylized character animation.
Orbital Ignition — Building worlds from the ground up.

Work arrangement
Yes