Groom Artist (Fur Specialist)

TL;DR

Groom Artist (VFX): Creating photo-realistic fur, hair, and feather grooms for hero creatures and digi-doubles with an accent on physically accurate attributes, deformation, and shader integration. Focus on collaborating with multiple teams to ensure seamless pipeline integration and pushing quality standards for fur and hair assets.

Location: Hybrid in Montreal, Quebec. This role is open to candidates legally authorized to work in North America and UK locations and willing to work on-site/hybrid as required by production and studio location.

Company

Barnstorm is an Emmy and VES-nominated visual effects studio based in Los Angeles with operations in Vancouver, Montreal, NYC, Atlanta, and London, providing photo-realistic visual effects for episodic and feature films.

What you will do

• Create high-quality, photo-real grooms for hero quadrupeds, creatures, and digi-doubles using Houdini.
• Develop physically accurate fur attributes and work with Lookdev on shader-driven fur materials.
• Ensure grooms behave predictably during deformation, simulation, and rendering processes.
• Prepare grooms for CFX and simulation workflows, including guide grooming and attribute painting.
• Collaborate closely with Creature, Rigging, CFX, and Lookdev teams for seamless integration.
• Contribute to improvements in grooming workflows, tools, and best practices.

Requirements

• 5+ years of professional VFX experience focused on grooming for episodics or features.
• Proven ability to create photo-real, hero-level fur grooms, preferably for quadrupeds.
• Expert proficiency in grooming tools such as Houdini Groom.
• Strong artistic understanding of animal anatomy, fur directionality, and sculptural detail.
• Experience collaborating with Lookdev on fur shaders and PBR-based hair/fur materials.
• Comfort working with CFX and Rigging teams, understanding groom interaction with skinning and simulation workflows.

Nice to have

• Scripting familiarity (Python, VEX, MEL).
• Groom lookdev and simulation experience.

Culture & Benefits

• Work in a collaborative pipeline with Creature, Rigging, CFX, Lookdev, and Lighting teams.
• Opportunity to share knowledge, refine workflows, and elevate studio groom quality.
• Be part of an Emmy and VES-nominated visual effects studio producing world-class visual effects.
• Committed to cultivating a diverse and inclusive work environment.
• Opportunity for certain benefits based on project length and local plan offerings for eligible contract artists.