Interview : Brandon

This week we sat down with Brandon, a 16 year old graphic designer. Yes, you did indeed read that right, 16 years old as in he was born in the 2000's, I'm only 19 and was born in the late 90's but still. We chose to reach out to Brandon because of the beautiful renders we've seen from him on his social media along with the amount of quality content he has released. Being so talented and hard working at a young age, while remaining passionate in the art you are creating is all the ingredients needed to explode into stardom. Brandon was born in San Francisco and grew up there for most of his life, only moving to Coppell, Texas 2 years ago.

Q. What was it like growing up in San Francisco?

A. "I took San Francisco for granted honestly, the weather was always perfect, the people were respectful, and downtown was always busily beautiful"

Q. Was the creative scene good in San Francisco? Did the beauty inspire you to create?

A. "Well, I couldn’t take advantage of the beauty mainly because I didn’t start creating renders until almost 1 year ago. My interpretation of art back when I was in California didn’t incorporate photography or digital renders. Texas is extremely dull, I don’t recommend living here for artistic inspiration."

Q. What made you get into doing renders and designing ?

A. "Haha well, extremely embarrassing backstory. I needed an intro for my gaming channel and I didn’t have money to buy one. So I started searching for tutorials for myself, but eventually made many many more for others and from 2015-2017, I created 3D animated intros for YouTubers. That time frame was extremely important to me in my opinion. That time frame I met many people in the 3D and 2D Intro community, such as Michael! From 2017-2018 I created 2D intros for a while as it was kind of like the “meta”. Near the end of 2017, Michael messaged me saying he wants to start an everyday project and wanted me to join in with him. So I attempted to start, and I honestly couldn’t keep up. I didn’t realize how much effort I had to put into these projects and I stopped for a while. Maybe about a month or two after Michael started, he tweeted out a statement that hit me extremely hard. I couldn’t remember it verbatim but it went something like this: “Too many people complain how they don’t have time to do everydays and wonder how I do it. I make time and sacrifice sleep” I started again on Jan. 1 2018 to prove myself I have self-discipline of some sort. I really have to give so much credit to Michael. He’s always been a huge inspiration to me and if I never met him during the intro making era, I would never start making renders or maybe even digital art at all."

(Michael, who Brandon is referring to is a graphic designer who we interviewed in the past, you can read the interview here)

Q. What inspires you to create?

A. "I usually get inspired by the minuscule things in life or my relationships and interactions with people. I really do want to do a month of photography everydays tho. Photography is so beautiful because the earth has like infinite details and resolution it’s crazy for me to think about"

Q What are some of your goals as an artist?

A. "I really want to make this career come true. In the future I really want to work with maybe some artists for music videos, or maybe game companies for trailers"

Q. How Did you get involved with Locations?

A. "Michael sent me the tweet that Locations was recruiting. That night Michael replied with his artwork and got accepted almost instantly. I was wondering if I should apply too, but most of the applicants had really good artwork. I then replied with 3 of my renders and thinking that the worse they can do is so say no and it’ll only make me work harder. I believe the next day Cris messaged me saying that he wants me to join the roster! I was absolutely shocked because I didn’t think I was good enough compared to the current roster (I still feel that way)"

Q. Is there any other artists that have inspired or influenced you?

A. "Definitely has to be beeple and stuz0r. I really don’t understand how they can make such an enormous, well-thought out, and fully rendered scene in a short amount of time."

Q. Are you looking at any colleges? Any idea where you want to live when you're older?

A. "I have a few i’m looking at such as: UPenn, UCLA, and UC Berkeley. It would be really nice go back to california to finally come back home."

"California would be the dream. Seattle, New York, Pennsylvania would be a nice place too. Just hoping it’s not Texas."

Q. If you could describe your art to people who never have seen it, what would you say?

A. "If you ever wanted to know how I feel one day, each day of my renders represents how I am feeling the day it was uploaded."

I personally really like Brandon's response to the last question. This proves that he puts all of himself in his work, so when you look at his Art you can tell that it was created with raw emotion and you also get a look into what was going on in Brandon's mind on any certain day. Speaking of his art, lets take a look at a couple of Brandon's favorites pieces that he has made to date. (*Disclaimer* I don't consider myself an art connoisseur, I just know what I like)

Lets start off with this first piece. I mean what is there to say besides that this render is incredible. The colors blend so well together, and the background compliments the hands insanely well. It puts my eyes in a euphoric state which makes it hard for me to look away. The purple, cyan, and green just mesh so well and makes the image look so so sooooooo clean, along with the violet crystal in the middle. The Black on the image really helps set the mood, it makes the whole atmosphere of the picture come together. It reminds me of a vintage deep space sci-fi movie (if that even makes sense).

Honestly this looks like a default background that you would have if you just bought your brand new Mac and turned it on for the first time. That is not a insult at all! I think the default backgrounds on the Mac are beautiful and look insanely sharp. If I could describe this render in one word it would simply be "Beauty". I can't express enough how much I want to make this my background on my computer because of how clean it looks. I love the white and gray skies, along with the dark gray mountain. The orange fall leaves on the trees compliment the the white amazingly. I just look at this render and I can feel the weather.

I really love this render.

You can view both of these pieces of art in the Burbs Gallery

Thanks to Brandon for doing the interview with us, we appreciate your time very much. We wish Brandon and Locations the most success in their Careers.

You Can Follow Brandon on his Social Media Below

Twitter | Instagram