Artist Highlight – Orlando Caicedo is a Colombian-born illustrator raised in Atlanta

Orlando Caicedo is a Colombian-born illustrator raised in Atlanta, Georgia. For more of his work you can check out his website, follow him on Twitter, or take a look at his Tumblr.

How did you become an illustrator?

I grew up with one goal in mind: to draw in exchange for food. So after completing my BFA with a concentration in Illustration at the Atlanta College of Art, I pursued just that. I started working in the animation field on the TV shows Frisky Dingo and The Xtacles illustrating characters, backgrounds, and props. Highly proficient at swapping my art for food, I was soon promoted to lead storyboard artist for Archer, working in the storyboard department for the first two seasons.

In 2011, I launched a career as a freelance illustrator, drawing inspiration from the belly I grew during my college years due to all the food acquired as commission for my freelance art. I have since storyboarded for the TV shows Unsupervised and China, IL as well as illustrated for various clients in projects for print, web, and television markets. My freelance work continues to develop and I spend as much time as possible sketching anything from the world around me and from the world inside my head. And luckily, I also get to spend a lot of time eating.

Give us a little insight as to how you use our JetPens products in your illustrations.

Currently most of my finished work is done digitally because of how much it speeds up the process. But I do a lot of my sketching, preliminary studies, and comic work with traditional media. I love ink and I’m a big fan of linear art so once I’ve loosely sketched out a drawing, I start inking the thinnest lines with various Ohto Graphic Liners. I used to be a big fan of other marker pens but once I tried these graphic liners I couldn’t go back. They feel like the old school drafting pens I used in college without the hassle of the cleaning and the clogging.

I like to move on to the rest of the lines by inking with the Zebra brush pens or the Tombow Fudenosuke brush pens. It’s a huge advantage to have portable brush pens because it lets me ink on the go and gives me a great variety in line weight. I finish up with the Pentel Pocket brush pen by spotting blacks, thickening a few lines, and sometimes adding some dry brush type of effects. Then any little accidents I make get corrected with the white Uni-ball Signo Broad gel ink pen and another pass with the brush pens. I like to explore with different tools offered at JetPens and my process will probably be different in a couple of months but for now this mash up process works best for me.