Sheffield Abella | Artist

I have been an artist and designer for almost 30 years. I was a teacher at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh Online Division. Prior to that I was a Senior Artist at Kizzang, a game company. Currently, I am developing my own IP projects.

I’m an artist, illustrator, designer and teacher. I do artwork for advertising, games, books, packaging and identity design. I have a passion for the human figure, so naturally, my work is mostly about people, characters and likenesses. I really enjoy working in most traditional media, my favorites being oil painting and a combination of watercolor and gouache, but most of my commercial work is now done digitally, using programs such as Photoshop and Painter for my bitmap work and Designer Pro+ for my vector work. This enables easy changes and quick turnarounds, as well as delivery over the internet.

Most of my full-time jobs have been in-house doing web design and branding. I taught drawing and digital painting classes at the Art Institute of Las Vegas, University of Las Vegas and Art Institute of Pittsburgh from 2004 up till the start of the pandemic. This environment enabled me to stay sharp with the latest technology and software as well as help students find their own visual voices.

I graduated with an MFA in Animation/Visual Development from Academy of Art University in 2013.

I enjoy stick fighting, woodworking and building computers from the ground up. I like putting all the parts of the machine together myself, including the system that I am using to write this.

Feel free to ask me anything.

Thanks for visiting.