Key Art Artist

Where we are headed

We want Sapphire to set the standard for how Marketplace content is presented. That means a catalog where every product is shown with the same level of craft, a recognizable studio look, and art that is honest about what the player is buying.

Over the next year that means two streams of work:

1. 1New releases. Key art for add-ons, maps and worlds currently in production.
2. 2Catalog refreshes. Rebuilding the key art for existing products that no longer represent the studio.

We study the store closely. We know what reads at store size, what loses players in the first second, and what earns the click without overpromising. We have a brand guide, a render pipeline, a Blender template and in-house tools built around that knowledge. We are looking for an artist who will use all of it, and who will tell us when any of it is wrong.

What key art is to us

Key art is the first thing a player or parent sees, usually at a few hundred pixels wide, next to dozens of competitors. It has one job: show exactly what the product is and make someone want it, at a glance.

Good key art for us:

• Has one clear hook. One or two subjects, staged large, that communicate the product's main feature. Everything else supports them or is cut.
• Reads at thumbnail size. The focal subject and its idea survive being shrunk to a fraction of the canvas.
• Is honest. Everything shown exists in the product, at the fidelity shown.
• Survives every crop. Subjects, title and logo sit inside the centered square of the frame, so one master works in wide, square and tall formats.
• Is designed, not found. Grounds, light, color and placement are deliberate decisions, not whatever the scene happened to look like.

The visual direction

Flat, graphic and poster-like. Light and shadow are treated as clean graphic shapes. The work should sit comfortably next to Minecraft's own marketing art while being clearly our own.

• Clean outlines on blocky, unbeveled geometry
• Two tones per surface with hard shadow edges
• Warm light against cool shadow, never neutral grey shadows
• Punchy, controlled color with a clear value structure
• Simple, designed grounds behind a strong subject
• Blocky 3D title lettering when a title earns its space

What we avoid: realistic rendering, photographic skies or HDRIs, bloom, glare, lens effects, depth of field, and busy scenery with no hook.

What you will do

You own each piece from brief to delivery.

1. 1Brief intake. Read the full creative brief and the product. Come back with questions and anything in the brief you think will not work.
2. 2Concepts. Send two or three rough compositions (sketches or blockouts), each with a short note on the hook and why the composition serves it.
3. 3Concept review. We pick a direction together. Expect real discussion, from both sides.
4. 4Render. Build and render the scene in Blender (Cycles) on our studio template, lighting presets and line-art setup. Pose rigged characters and mobs, and stage items and structures from the actual product files.
5. 5Paint-over and finishing. Take the render into Photoshop and finish it: value, contrast, edge control, color, effects, and brand-exact compositing of type and logo.
6. 6Titles and logos. Design product title lockups when the brief calls for one.
7. 7Self-QC. Before every review, check your own work: thumbnail read, crop test, focal hierarchy, honesty against the product, and a proofread of every word in the art.
8. 8Review and revision. Work through feedback until owner sign-off.
9. 9Delivery. Final exports in our Marketplace formats, a layered PSD in our layer structure, and a packed .blend.

Depending on the product, the work may extend to panoramas, screenshots and social formats

What we expect

Fundamentals arrive solved. Value structure, contrast, focal hierarchy, silhouette, edge control and color harmony are your responsibility before anything reaches review. Reviews should be about direction and ideas, not basics.

You critique your own work first. Before you send a piece, you have already looked at it small, cropped it, flipped it, and asked what is weakest. You send it with a note on what you think still needs work.

You work from a full brief, and you push on it. Every piece comes with a written brief: product, hook, audience, references, content list, required formats and constraints. You are expected to read all of it, use all of it, and question what does not hold up.

You speak up. If a composition is not working, if colors fight, if contrast is flat, if a brief asks for something that will hurt the image, or if our existing art or brand rules are producing weak results, say so directly and explain why. We would rather hear "this is not working, here is why, here is what I would do" than receive a polished version of a bad idea.

You take critique the same way. Feedback here is direct. We expect you to engage with it, defend choices you believe in, and change them when the argument is better.

You are autonomous. You manage your own schedule, ask questions early, flag problems before deadlines, and do not need step-by-step direction to make good decisions.

Your files are clean. Named layers, organized collections, packed data. Someone else should be able to open your source files and continue the work.

How we collaborate

• Briefs and tasks live in ClickUp. Day-to-day conversation happens on Discord.
• The owner sets art direction and signs off on all public-facing work.
• Critique runs both ways. Your opinion on composition, color and design carries weight, including on work you did not make.
• We provide the brand guide, render pipeline documentation, Blender template, rigs, in-house tools and product files. You are expected to learn them and work within them, and to raise it when they get in the way.

Requirements

• A portfolio of Minecraft-style key art or marketing renders made in Blender, showing finished images.
• Strong Blender skills: Cycles, lighting, posing blocky rigs, nearest-neighbor textures, alpha cutouts, view layers and render passes.
• Strong Photoshop skills (Affinity accepted): painting over renders, value and contrast control, compositing, layer organization.
• A trained eye for composition, value, color and readability, and the vocabulary to explain your decisions.
• Able to work from a detailed brief and a technical spec without dropping requirements.
• Comfortable giving and receiving blunt, specific critique.
• Clear written English.
• Proactive Updates and Responsive on Discord

Strong positives

• You have told a client or lead their idea was wrong, and been right.
• Your portfolio shows a visible jump from raw render to finished piece.
• Freestyle or Grease Pencil line-art experience.
• Prior Minecraft Marketplace work.
• Logo and type design, especially blocky 3D lettering.
• Familiarity with Bedrock model and texture files.
• A background in illustration, poster design or game marketing art.