I personally prefer painting without 3D. Having a 3D base can be useful as a base, it gives a sense of scale and perspective. However I prefer working on a shot with a lot of 2D matte painting ! What is less interesting according to me is painting over 3D renders to texture, patch or to clean a plate...

Which industry professionals do you admire most? Why?

I admire a lot of amazing matte painters and concept artists such as Dusso, Raphael Lacoste, Craig Mullins. All the matte painters who used to paint on glasses as well.
I would love to have oil painting skills to paint like Vladimir Volegov.
Furthermore, my childhood dreams have always been driven by directors such as Steven Spielberg, Tsui Hark or Yimou Zhang.

Lastly, if you weren't a matte painter, what would you be doing now?

That’s a tough question ! Before being introduced to matte painting I did not even know what that was. At the time I wanted to be a compositing artist. So I guess, if I was not a matte painter today, I would be a compositor, maybe ?

More about Mai Anh Tran

You can find more of her artworks on her Behance profile or website.