STAR TREK IV: INSURRECTION was my first official matte painting job. My assignment was to take CG renderings that did not have any textures applied onto them, and to paint "noise" over them…in other words, make them look more photo-realistic, and less CG perfect. Additionally, I was assigned to extend a CG set, and to add lighting to the renderings.

STAR TREK IV was not a particularly difficult show for me. Often, the turn-around times on shot approvals were lengthy, and my shots were generally approved on the first take! For the most part, I found that working on matte paintings were much easier than painting textures because I did not have to deal with 3-D shaders and rendering.

Here are some before and after images to demonstrate what I did.