01About the studio

Backstory.

I'm Dana — and Brass Compass is one desk, one set of eyes, and a decade spent turning architects' files into images that clients actually believe.

Founded
Delano, 2016
Runs on
One pair of hands
Made
Renders · film · staging
Dana at the studio desk reviewing a photoreal render, blueprints and a brass compass nearby
02

How it started

From a stalled meeting to a studio

Years ago I sat in the back of a planning meeting watching a good architect lose a room. The design was solid — beautiful, even — but everyone was staring at line drawings and elevations, and nobody in that room could picture the building. The developer went quiet. The board looked bored. A great project nearly died on the table, not because it was wrong, but because it was invisible.

I'd been doing 3D and lighting work on the side for a couple of firms already, and that meeting stuck with me. There's a gap between the people who can read a plan and the people who sign off on the money — and that gap is exactly where projects stall. Brass Compass exists to close it. I make the one image, or the one thirty-second film, that lets the whole room see the same building at the same time.

I named it after the tool. A compass finds true north and holds a line you can trust. That's the promise: real sun for the real lot, materials you can name off the spec sheet, people and cars at honest scale. No fake glow, no borrowed stock rooms, no render that flatters a building into something it isn't.

Ten years on, it's still one desk in Delano — and I like it that way. When you hire Brass Compass, the person you email is the person moving the camera and pushing the lighting at eleven at night. Every frame that leaves here has been through my eyes and no one else's.

03

What I won't cut corners on

Four things I hold true north

These aren't slogans. They're the reasons a client can put my render in front of a lender and not get caught out.

  1. 01

    The light has to be honest

    I set the sun for your actual lot and the hour that flatters it — no invented glow, no impossible shadows. If the render shows morning light on a north wall, someone on the board will notice, and they'll stop trusting the whole image.

  2. 02

    Materials come off the spec sheet

    Board-formed concrete, brushed oak, weathered zinc — I model what you're actually building, not a stock swatch that looks close. When a buyer walks the finished space, it should match the picture they fell for.

  3. 03

    The price is fixed before I start

    You get a number and a delivery date up front, with two revision rounds baked in. Anything beyond that is $150 a round, quoted in advance — the invoice never surprises you at the end.

  4. 04

    Your drawings stay in the studio

    Your plans, files, and unbuilt designs never leave my hands or get farmed out to a render mill overseas. One studio, one set of eyes, start to delivery.

04

Where the work happens

One desk in Delano, wired to firms all over California

The studio sits on El Camino Dr, but most of my work arrives as a file and leaves as a link. I've rendered mixed-use blocks for developers three counties away, library expansions for boards I've only ever met on a screen, and custom homes for architects who wanted their client to walk the house before the slab was poured.

Working with one person has a shape to it: you skip the account manager, the handoff, and the game of telephone. You send the drawings, I ask the questions that matter, and the same hands carry it from grey-box to final frame. It's quieter than an agency — and a lot harder to hide behind.

10 days, typical, from approved plans to your first drafts
2 revision rounds baked into every fixed quote
The Brass Compass studio at night, monitors showing a dusk render, plans pinned to the wall
05

Start a project

Tell me what you're building

Now that you know how I work — send the basics and I'll come back, usually same week, with a fixed price and a realistic delivery date. No call required unless you'd rather talk it through.

Studio hours

Mon–Thu
8:30am – 7:00pm
Friday
8:30am – 1:00pm
Sat–Sun
By appointment

I'll never share your plans or drawings with anyone outside the studio.

Now you know who's behind the render.

If you've got a project that has to be seen before it's sold, I'd like to be the one who shows it. Reach me directly and we'll get moving.

Call (661) 472-9034 Request a quote