Senior 3D Character Artist & Technical Character Artist (Photorealistic Drivers for Custom Racing Game)

We are developing a racing game on a custom engine and are looking to establish a relationship with a highly skilled 3D Character Artist/Technical Character Artist for future production work.
While full production is still a few months away, we would like to identify and onboard the right artist now to ensure a smooth pipeline when development reaches the next stage.
Project Requirements (Per Character):
We need photorealistic racing driver characters with full facial animation capability suitable for real-time gameplay.
Deliverables include:
High-fidelity head mesh with clean, game-ready topology (no raw scan data)
Optimized character mesh suitable for a custom game engine
PBR texture sets (2K resolution)
Facial blend shape library covering:
Jaw movement
Lip shapes and phonemes
Eye expressions
Brow movements
Cheek deformations
Complete skeletal rig
Facial joints and skin weighting
Hair created using alpha-tested geometry/cards
Racing suit and helmet with high-quality textures
Clean asset organization and export-ready files
Required Skills:
Expert-level character modeling and topology
Realistic human anatomy and likeness creation
Facial rigging and blend shape development
Skin weighting and deformation setup
Hair card creation for games
PBR texturing workflows
Maya, Blender, 3ds Max, or equivalent professional tools
Experience delivering characters for game engines
Please Include in Your Proposal:
Portfolio examples of photorealistic game characters.
Examples of facial rigs and facial animation systems.
Character models you've created from scratch (not solely scan-based workflows).
Estimated timeline for a character of this complexity.
Your rate per character or preferred pricing structure.
This is intended to become an ongoing collaboration as our project moves toward future milestones. We are looking for artists who can consistently deliver AAA-quality character assets and work closely with our team during production.