Art and Illustrations

First post in...FOREVER..

2011-11-05T14:10:00.000-07:00

The Creative Talent Network eXpo is coming up in a couple of weeks, and as I sat this afternoon, refining my business card, I thought about how I haven't blogged in some time. Time has been tight the last couple of months as I work part time as a graphic designer and part time as a freelance illustrator. I have recently completed a few freelance promotional projects for a church in Upland and am currently working on commissioned paintings for a camp in the Santa Barbara mountains. All this work, though it has been paid, has left me with little chance to work on my personal portfolio. Below is my current project, which has remained in this phase for weeks!

Current work

2011-08-15T23:40:00.000-07:00

So I have been working on characters lately, to try and round out my visual development portfolio. Next comes some narrative work :-)

A panda spoof on a classic Streetfighter character, E.honda. You'll see more of these as my buddy Albert and I are attempting to out do each other with our panda characters.

The mischief of the group of boys that hang out in the treehouse I painted a few months ago. I will continue with this series.

The leader of the gang of boys from the same series as above.

My first completed portfolio piece of the summer!

2011-06-13T10:46:00.000-07:00

I am excited to say that I had fun with this painting and am pleased with how quickly I went from sketch to finish. Lets keep this momentum rolling!

Forest trolls dwelling continues

2011-06-01T10:27:00.000-07:00

Here are a few lighting comps for my next piece.

2011 Summer Speedpaint Challenge!

2011-06-01T00:35:00.000-07:00

Dwelling of forrest trolls. This I will take to finish. More to come on this one!

A panda guard!

The last of my school projects...for now at least

2011-05-23T22:36:00.000-07:00

So I've just graduated! And it is an exciting time and a scary time, but it was quite the journey. Here are my last couple school projects completed the week before graduating.

Finished Treehouse Paintings

2011-05-14T09:31:00.000-07:00

A few more environments!

2011-05-14T00:45:00.000-07:00

Pagoda Waterfall Fortress. Digital Media (Corel Painter)

The Lair of the Ice King. Digital Media (Corel Painter)

Treehouse

2011-03-21T20:17:00.000-07:00

So I've been working environments this semester. To date, what I posted last (for the Dream Crit) was all I had completed. Here are a couple more comps for my personal portfolio based on my ideal treehouse--the one every elementary boy wanted growing up but no dad would allow him to have...

The DreamCrit

2011-03-04T17:39:00.000-08:00

I was given an awesome opportunity today: upon opening the inbox to my gmail account, I received a message, informing me that the following works deemed me worthy of participating in a critique/discussion/lecture at Dream Works Animation Studios. The discussion will be led by Dream Works artists. One lucky aspiring visual development artist from each of 4 Cal State schools was chosen to have their work critiqued by development artists working for Dream Works. (I'm not one of them). However, I am still extremely excited to be given this opportunity to participate in a panel of artists in an industry that I find quite appealing. I am definitely looking forward to this! :-)

New Environment!

2011-02-15T15:28:00.000-08:00

New Website

2010-12-17T16:49:00.000-08:00

Well, the last several days have been pack full of website building to meet my personal deadline of getting a professional website up. There are still some bugs to work out, however it's a start...and not a bad one at that I think.

The URL is www.brandonsteelestudios.com. Check it out! :-)

Some digital sketches

2010-11-01T19:51:00.000-07:00

Images from my 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea series.

2010-11-01T09:25:00.000-07:00

Being fascinated by Jules Verne and early science fiction, I decided to do a series of book plates (interior illustrations) for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Here are a few of my paintings.

New Digital Illustrations!

2010-10-06T12:40:00.000-07:00

It's been some time since my last posting, but in that time I've completed many more school projects, several of which are done digitally in Corel Painter.

Practice Apples in Corel Painter

2010-02-18T20:45:00.000-08:00

Never played around with painter before...so here are a few of my first attempts at rendering and painting apples with the digital media.

Wooden eye

2009-12-02T19:45:00.001-08:00

Yeah that's it. It's an eye made to look like it's made of wood.

Eye #7. George Seurat photoshop eye

2009-12-02T16:01:00.000-08:00

Think it works?

German Expressionist Eye

2009-12-02T15:29:00.001-08:00

Inspired by the works of Franz Marc and those of the Blue Rider group of German Expressionism.

Surrealist Eye.

2009-12-02T14:28:00.000-08:00

Painted in the surrealist stylings of Rene Magritte and definitely inspired by one of his works.

Eyeball number 4.

2009-12-01T21:32:00.000-08:00

This eye is painted in the style of Delacroix--a Romantic painter with a "looser" style of painting.

Photoshop Eye #3!

2009-12-01T17:42:00.000-08:00

This eye was painted in the style of William Adolphe Bouguerea, a classical painter from the 1800's... Painting in Photoshop's taking some getting used to!

Eyes Painted in Photoshop

2009-11-30T21:57:00.000-08:00

So the assignment here and for the next few posts above is to paint an eye in Photoshop in the style of a given artist. The two here are Vincent van Gogh (bottom) and J.C. Leyendecker (top).

Texture eye

2009-11-28T19:02:00.001-08:00

This eye is used using different textures overlaid on top of each other.

Painting...

2009-11-11T13:18:00.000-08:00

So this is my first painting uploaded to this blog. It was done for a grade in a class this semester (fall of 2009). The JPEG compression does not do it justice. The colors are more saturated.

Famous Eye

2009-11-02T20:18:00.000-08:00

For this eye assignment, we needed to find a famous eye from a piece of artwork which would be easily recognizable. We should be doing something to it in Photoshop I think soon. Anyone know who's eye it is?? Haha.

Close-up my own eye

2009-11-02T20:17:00.000-08:00

Yeah...the title pretty much says it all.

3D eye in Google SketchUp

2009-11-02T20:16:00.000-08:00

For this assignment, we were required to create a 3-demential eye. That's tough :-)

So this took me forever...

2009-10-23T12:47:00.000-07:00

So Project 3 for the digital illustration class was to create a technical illustration which clearly shows the audience how to do something...only with an unexpected twist. You should be able to figure this one out.

This is two alternatives to the same "How to..." I swapped the order because it was late, I was extremely tired, and my mind started telling me it would work better a different way; so I put up both.

It's my head.

2009-10-23T12:43:00.000-07:00

This was the second assignment for my Fall 2009 digital illustration class. Here, I had to create a metaphorical silhouette--basically describing me with visual representation.

T-shirt design.

2009-10-23T12:42:00.000-07:00

So the assignment was to create a t-shirt design that illustrates what's funny about being an artist. In a moment of complete listlessness while trying to fulfill the minimum number of thumbnails, I drew this. Get it?

More Eyes!

2009-10-08T19:48:00.000-07:00

The top eye is my interpretation of what an awesomely colored orange eye would look like if it were a technical illustration. The bottom eye is an exercise with custom pattern brushes.

Pattern in an Eye

2009-09-30T13:40:00.001-07:00

Well, the assignment here was to create a pattern to alter the appearance of the eye.

Eyes - Week 5

2009-09-24T20:20:00.000-07:00

The top eye is rendered to look like chrome while the bottom eye utilizes a custom stroke. I think it enhances the appearance of the lower eye.

Descriptive Drawing

2009-09-22T09:05:00.000-07:00

All of these are graphite drawings done in a summer session class at Cal State Fulleron. Graphite's fun :-D

Vector Eyes (Week of 9/18)

2009-09-17T18:45:00.000-07:00

2009-09-15T15:28:00.000-07:00

From the same series for the same class. This is another graphite drawing showing a hand and an elephant metaphorphesis.

2009-09-15T15:24:00.000-07:00

This is graphite drawing from a series illustrating a relationship between a hand and elephant. It was a project for a traditional illustration class.

Eyes

2009-09-14T17:17:00.000-07:00

Eyes in Illustrator. Top left: The essence of an eye. Bottom right: An eye using only ellipses.

An Introduction...

2009-09-09T21:32:00.000-07:00

Hey Readers!

My name is Brandon Steele, currently a first year senior at California State University, Fullerton getting a Bachelor of Fine Arts with a concentration in illustration. This blog is all about my work, my portfolio, my class work, and my inspiration and influences. Enjoy!