Francesco Baldini
Francesco Baldini
Principal Character Artist at Compulsion Games
Montreal, Canada

Summary

Italian Lead / Principal Character Artist based in Montréal, active in the industry since 2019, with experience across teaching, VFX, and game production.

My work focuses on characters, creatures, monsters, and hero assets, with a strong interest in stylized realism, handcrafted aesthetics, material storytelling, and the space where artistic direction meets production reality.

Over the years, I’ve worked across sculpting, texturing, look development, outsourcing supervision, and character art leadership, contributing to projects such as South of Midnight, Nope, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, and other game productions.

What I enjoy most is being part of teams where people can grow as artists while also building real human connections with the people around them. I love large productions for the chance they give us to work on worlds and IPs that shaped our imagination, and smaller productions for the closeness they create between everyone involved.

At the end of the day, what brought me to this work was the desire to tell stories. Characters are one of the ways I try to do that: through shape, texture, materials, emotion, and the people I get to create them with.

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Skills

ShadingAnatomyClothing DesignPBR TexturingTeachingLightingTexturingVisual DevelopmentTeam ManagementCharacter Modeling3D ModelingDigital Sculpting

Software proficiency

Maya
Maya
Photoshop
Photoshop
ZBrush
ZBrush
Substance 3D Painter
Substance 3D Painter
Mudbox
Mudbox
After Effects
After Effects
Arnold
Arnold
Marmoset Toolbag
Marmoset Toolbag
Unreal Engine
Unreal Engine
Mari
Mari
Marvelous Designer
Marvelous Designer
Quixel Suite
Quixel Suite
Premiere
Premiere
RenderMan
RenderMan
R3DS Wrap
R3DS Wrap
Xgen
Xgen
Nuke
Nuke
Substance 3D Sampler
Substance 3D Sampler

Reel

Productions

    • Movie
      Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom
    • Year
      2023
    • Role
      Key Texture Artist
    • Company
      MPC
    • Movie
      NOPE
    • Year
      2022
    • Role
      Key Texture/Lookdev Artist
    • Company
      MPC
    • Movie
      Stitch Head
    • Year
      2023
    • Role
      Lead Texture/Lookdev Artist
    • Company
      Traumhaus Studios

Experience

  • Principal Character Artist at Compulsion Games
    Montreal, CA
    July 2025 - Present

    After two rewarding years as a Lead, I chose to transition back into a more hands-on, creative role. This move allows me to refocus on my artistic growth, refine my style, and deepen my creative vision.

  • Lead Character Artist at Compulsion Games
    Remote
    February 2023 - July 2025

  • Character Artist at Wargaming
    Remote
    October 2022 - November 2023

  • Key Texture Artist at MPC - Character Lab
    London, United Kingdom
    June 2021 - September 2022

    - NOPE

    - AQUAMAN

  • Lead Texture Artist at Traumhaus Studios GmbH
    Erfurt, Germany
    February 2021 - May 2021

    Responsible for the Texturing&LookDev Dept.

  • Character Artist at Visual Pro 360
    Remote Work, Italy
    December 2020 - April 2021

    Responsible for the main Characters outfits

  • 3D Artist at Eaton Media Limited
    Remote Work, Italy
    September 2019 - August 2020

  • Teacher at Bigrock School
    Ca'Tront, Italy
    September 2018 - September 2019

    Teaching Modelling and Texturing in VR and CGI courses