Indie Studio: Studio Zubio
Project: Bunderkin: The Ocular Eclipse
Position: 3D Gameplay Character Animator – Stylized
Compensation: $20–$30 USD/hour, based on experience
Additional Compensation: Tier-Based Profit-Sharing Bonus Plan
Type: Paid Contract Position
Skillset(s) Required:
Stylized 3D Character Animation – Gameplay, Locomotion, Stealth & Parkour
We’re looking for a talented 3D character animator with a strong sense of appeal, personality, weight, timing, and physicality to join the development of Bunderkin: The Ocular Eclipse, our stylized, character-driven stealth action-adventure game.
Bunderkin features a colorful cast of expressive characters, each with their own personalities, movement styles, and behaviors.
We’re looking for someone who understands that great gameplay animation isn’t just about making characters move beautifully. It’s about creating responsive, readable, entertaining movement that feels fantastic to control and watch.
Animation work will include:
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Hero Movement & Parkour: Running, jumping, climbing, vaulting, ledge traversal, sidling, crawling, tightrope walking, and other acrobatic movement.
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Stealth Animation: Sneaking, hiding, cautious movement, distractions, takedowns, evasive actions, and contextual interactions.
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Villager & NPC Animation: Walk cycles, idles, conversations, reactions, occupational activities, and expressive everyday behaviors that bring our world to life.
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Enemy Animation: Patrols, alert states, investigations, pursuits, attacks, stuns, recoveries, and other gameplay behaviors.
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Animation Transitions: Starts, stops, turns, pivots, anticipation, recovery, and smooth transitions between gameplay states.
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Character Personality: Creating distinct, appealing movement styles that reflect each character’s personality and role.
Experience we’re looking for:
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Strong professional experience animating stylized 3D characters for games.
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Excellent understanding of animation principles, posing, silhouettes, timing, spacing, weight, and appeal.
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Experience creating gameplay locomotion sets and animation cycles.
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Experience with stealth, action-adventure, platforming, or third-person character movement.
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Proficiency in Maya and/or Blender.
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Familiarity with Unreal Engine animation workflows.
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Understanding of animation blending, root motion, in-place animation, and gameplay responsiveness.
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Ability to work with existing character rigs and established animation libraries.
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Experience collaborating with gameplay programmers and technical animators.
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Ability to create expressive, exaggerated animation without sacrificing gameplay clarity.
Bonus Skills:
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Experience with Unreal Engine 5 Motion Matching / Pose Search workflows.
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Familiarity with Motion Warping and animation-driven traversal.
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Experience creating animation sets for AI-driven NPCs and enemies.
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Experience with quadrupeds, unusual character proportions, or highly stylized cartoon characters.
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Experience building reusable animation libraries across multiple characters.
Previous Work:
Bunderkin: The Ocular Eclipse
A colorful, character-driven stealth action-adventure featuring exploration, disguises, puzzles, advanced traversal, and time-loop mechanics.
Our project recently completed a successful Kickstarter campaign, raising over $283,000 from our community.
We have an established development team, a playable demo on Steam, and a two-year production roadmap.
Portfolio / Project:
Studio: https://studiozubio.com
Steam: Bunderkin: The Ocular Eclipse on Steam
Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/studiozubio/bunderkin-the-ocular-eclipse
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@bunderkin
Compensation & Profit Sharing:
This is a paid contract position offering $20–$30 USD per hour, depending on experience and qualifications.
We’re a small independent studio working within an indie budget, but we’re committed to building something special and rewarding the people who help make it happen.
In addition to hourly compensation, qualifying contributors are eligible to participate in Bunderkin’s tier-based profit-sharing bonus plan.
We’ve established a bonus pool equal to 10% of the game’s distributable profits, shared among eligible development contributors.
Individual bonus allocations are determined by approved project hours and assigned contribution tiers. Higher-responsibility roles receive higher point multipliers.
Profit-sharing distributions are contingent upon the game’s profitability, recovery of applicable development costs, and the terms of the bonus plan. They are not guaranteed.
We want the talented people helping us build Bunderkin to have an opportunity to share in its commercial success.
Contact:
Email: scandell@studiozubio.com
Please include your résumé, animation demo reel, and examples of stylized character animation you’ve created for games.
We’re especially interested in seeing gameplay animation cycles, locomotion sets, parkour, stealth movement, and expressive character performances.
Additional Information:
We’re a small, independent development studio creating a handcrafted, character-driven adventure.
You’ll collaborate closely with our gameplay developers, senior technical artist, character modelers, and gameplay designer.
We already have an extensive library of character animations and established rigs. Some of your work will involve improving existing animations, while other assignments will involve developing entirely new movement sets for our growing cast of characters.
We’re looking for someone who can combine strong animation fundamentals with a playful, expressive style and a practical understanding of game development.
Our characters have a lot of personality. We want that personality to shine through in every movement!