About

ADRIAN MELIAN | TECHNICAL ARTIST

914.874.3390 | Denver, CO | AdrianMelian123@gmail.com | AdrianMelian.com

1. Summary

   about me

   Vision driven Technical Artist and creative leader with a uniquely blended background in animation, design, and programming. Bridging visual creativity with technical execution. Over 14 years of game industry experience, with over 10 shipped titles. Leads teams towards building tools and pipelines that elevate production efficiency and artistic integrity.
2. Skills & Abilities

   about me

   Disciplines

   • Rigging, animation, modeling, tools, scripting, game-design, gameplay-programming, graphic design..

   SOFTWARE

   • Maya, Unreal, Unity, ZBrush, Painter, Git, Perforce.

   LANGUAGES

   • Python, PyQt, C++, C#, Lua, Hugo.
3. Sledgehammer Games

   date - present

   Expert Technical Artist

   Titles: Vanguard (2021), MW3 (2023), Unannounced Title (2026)

   • Led the Character Tech Art team; trained and managed internal and OS artists
   • Developed and maintained character, animation, and rigging workflows
   • Created proprietary tools for animation, rigging, and cloth simulation
   • Skinned high-fidelity characters, including celebrity likenesses like Snoop Dogg
   • Balanced and optimized character assets for in-engine performance
4. Meta

   Menlo Park | Nov 2018 – Dec 2020

   Technical Artist

   Titles: Vanguard (2021), MW3 (2023), Unannounced Title (2026)

   • Created artist-facing tools and animation exporters
   • Built performance-optimized workflows for VR
   • Developed a Figma-to-ReactVR plugin
5. Nomadic VR

   San Rafael | Dec 2017 – Nov 2018

   Senior Technical Artist

   • Integrated LEAP Motion VR
   • Calibrated OptiTrack & Motive systems
   • Prototyped LBE VR experiences and digital-physical rigs
6. NCSoft

   San Mateo | Jan 2017 – Dec 2017

   Senior Technical Artist

   • Built main character rigs and batch rigging tools
   • Developed a modular auto-rigging system and animation retargeting tools
   • Created 30+ rigs for hero and enemy characters
7. Ubisoft

   San Francisco | Aug 2016 – Dec 2016

   Senior Technical Artist

   Title: South Park : The Fractured but Whole (2017)

   • Rigged 2D/3D characters
   • Authored pipeline and 2D flipbook animation tools
8. Pullstring

   San Francisco | Oct 2015 – Jul 2016

   Senior Technical Artist

   • Rigged all characters across multiple projects
   • Built a pose/animation library, Trax editor pipeline, lip-sync tools, and Maya–Unity exporters
   • Authored planetary shaders for procedural galaxy rendering
9. Perfect World Entertainment

   Redwood City | Mar 2015 – Oct 2015

   Technical Artist

   • Rigged and animated characters, props, and buildings for mobile games
   • Built Maya to Unity export tools
10. Double Fine Productions

    San Francisco | Jan 2012 – Nov 2014

    Technical Artist

    Titles:

    • Costume Quest 2 – Rigged/skinned 26 of 28 characters, animated gameplay and cutscenes
    • Broken Age – Modeled, rigged/skinned 40+ characters, built flipbook animation system
    • Massive Chalice – Created map-editing and randomization tools based on CSV input
    • Spacebase DF-9 – Animation/Rigging
    • My Alien Buddy – Concepted and prototyped gameplay, created all characters, and wrote Lua scripts
    • Kinect Party – Updated tools, authored animation transfer tools
    • Worked on multiple Amnesia Fortnight titles (Little Pink Best Buds, Dear Leader, Black Lake, White Birch)
11. Concept Art House

    San Francisco | Feb 2011 – Sep 2011

    Technical Artist & Project Manager

    • Created MEL-based auto-rigging tools for bipeds and quadrupeds
    • Managed outsourcing teams, tracked production, and maintained quality
    • Authored style guides, tutorials, and assignments for external partners
    • Worked across various social and browser-based games (Zoo World 2, Legacy of a Thousand Suns, Vegas City, etc.)
12. Art Institute of California - San Francisco

    Sep 2006 – Dec 2010

    B.S. in Media Arts & Animation

    • Best Portfolio Award 2010
13. Suny Sullivan - New York

    Aug 2004 – Aug 2006

    A.S. in Graphic Design

    • Best Portfolio Award 2010
14. Communication

    about me

    Authored internal style guides, tech tutorials, training documents, and pipeline documentation. Frequently collaborated with cross-discipline teams, from art to engineering. Delivered presentations, live demos, and 1-on-1 training to onboard artists and support adoption of new tools.
15. Leadership

    about me

    Led Sledgehammer’s Character Tech Art team on three Call of Duty titles. Managed, trained, and art-directed internal and offshore artists. Oversaw large-scale rigging and skinning pipelines with consistent quality control. Delegated tasks, reviewed work, and maintained consistency across complex multi-project pipelines.