Bio

Heather Brown is a distinguished 3D shading specialist with over 20 years of experience in the entertainment industry.  Her work is featured throughout acclaimed franchises such as the Marvel universe, the Star Wars galaxy, Alien: Romulus, Cocaine Bear, Ice Age,Rio, ‪Horton Hears a Who‬, Epic, The Peanuts Movie, Ferdinand, and Spies in Disguise.  She currently serves as a Look Development Lead at Weta FX and is an active member of ACM Siggraph, and Women in Animation.

Throughout her career, Heather has been instrumental in optimizing workflows for procedural look development, with an emphasis on achieving photorealistic shading and procedural fabric rendering in high-end film production. Her expertise spans visual effects, 3D feature animation, live-action, and post-production, where she has collaborated with teams around the globe to create intricate procedural surface textures for diverse environments and characters, from ancient forests of the thawing ice age to a fleet of special agents and melting bronze statues, to viscera and decaying comic book villains. 

Before embarking on her 3D digital arts career, Heather spent a decade in live-action TV production, advertising, and media agencies in New York City. She holds a degree from Syracuse University's College of Visual and Performing Arts.   A passionate maker, Heather enjoys designing costumes and props and translating them into IRL incarnations, knitting, sewing, and cosplays, blending creativity with technical expertise as she continues to push the boundaries of visual storytelling.