Budweiser American Icons
Henry-Alex Rubin
VFX company : Time Based Arts (remote)
Role : Senior Digital Matte Painter / 3D DMP
Budweiser – American Icons was a particularly rewarding project to be part of. I joined the team at Time Based Arts as a Senior Digital Matte Painter / 3D Digital Matte Painter, working remotely from Paris, France.
Throughout the production, I was heavily involved in both the visual development and the creation of final digital matte paintings for multiple shots.
One of the most fulfilling aspects of the project was having the opportunity to contribute creatively from the earliest stages of development. By combining traditional visual development techniques with modern AI-assisted workflows, I was able to rapidly explore a wide range of visual directions and propose refined concepts to the creative team.
The same workflow then allowed me to efficiently transform those concepts into production-ready matte paintings delivered to the compositing department. Being involved from the initial visual exploration through to the final VFX delivery provided a strong sense of continuity and creative ownership across the project.
The project offered the opportunity to work extensively within the visual language of the American countryside.
From large-scale landscapes to subtle environmental details, I greatly enjoyed developing the atmosphere, and the colour palettes that helped define the identity of the ranch and farming environments featured throughout the film.
Large environment shots such as this are essential for building a believable world that supports the story and provides visual cohesion throughout the film.
Layered breakdown illustrating the construction of one of the countryside digital matte paintings, from visual development foundations to the final asset delivered to compositing.
Like most production matte paintings, the final image was built from numerous elements designed to provide maximum flexibility for integration, grading and future creative adjustments.
Another exciting challenge involved creating winter environments and large-scale digital matte paintings designed to support extended camera movements.
I have always enjoyed creating matte paintings that support full camera movements, as they shift the focus from crafting a single image to building a cohesive and believable world.
Working on environments that extend across multiple shots encourages a world-building approach, ensuring consistency in scale, geography and storytelling throughout the story.
A key aspect of my workflow was combining traditional Digital Matte Painting techniques with modern AI-assisted exploration. Used within an established VFX pipeline, these tools allowed for rapid iteration while maintaining the creative and technical standards required for high-end commercial work.
Photoshop, Nuke and Blender remained central to the process, enabling concepts to evolve efficiently into final production assets.
Several shots required large-scale environment extensions designed to support significant camera movement.
Building environments beyond the needs of a single frame is always a rewarding challenge, encouraging a broader approach to world-building and visual storytelling. Creating spaces that remain coherent across multiple shots reinforces both scale and immersion.
In addition to full environment creation, the project included a significant amount of plate enhancement work. The combination of photography, Photoshop, Nuke, Blender and AI-assisted workflows enabled the rapid creation of highly refined visuals while preserving the technical requirements necessary for production. When guided by an experienced Digital Matte Painter who understands both artistic and compositing requirements, these tools become a powerful way to explore multiple creative solutions and efficiently deliver production-ready assets.
A strong understanding of 3D workflows remains an essential skill for modern Digital Matte Painting. Using Blender, and camera mapping techniques, I was able to transfer and adapt matte painting elements between multiple shots while maintaining consistent scale, perspective and integration.
This approach was particularly valuable for maintaining continuity across the ranch and its surrounding grain silos, allowing these key elements of the environment to remain consistent in scale, perspective and design across different camera angles and sequences.
The project also involved extensive plate enhancement work.
Beyond environment creation, Digital Matte Painting plays an important role in refining and shaping photographed locations to better serve the story.
Traditional Digital Matte Painting techniques remained at the heart of the work. Through careful photobashing, paint work, image manipulation and layered construction in Photoshop, I was able to create the elements required to seamlessly integrate the photographed plates into the project's visual universe.
In some cases, this included transforming the season of an environment, adapting a ranch landscape to fit the desired look and atmosphere of the film.
Delivering clean, organised and flexible layers to compositing ensured that integration, grading and final adjustments could be completed efficiently while maintaining the highest visual quality standards.
