Meet Jordan Cintron of Westchester

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jordan Cintron.

Hi Jordan, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
As a kid, I watched a lot of cartoons. My dad would play tapes on the TV of classic Looney Tunes shorts. As I got older, I became more interested in shows like Adventure Time, Regular Show, and Futurama. These shows heavily influenced my drawing style for a long time and I still carry their fun and dynamic quality in my work today.

I always liked drawing as a kid, even in class. So much so that when some teachers found out I’ve been drawing instead of paying attention, they’d take the paper away from me, and told me to never draw again in class. But hey, they never saw the little doodles I made on my desk! I was definitely known for being an artist In high school. Once, I was asked by my science teacher to draw on her small black cabinet door with acrylic markers. It felt like I had been honored with one of the highest awards, to see my art in a classroom for everyone to see. But, when I drew in my sketchbook and had someone look over my shoulder, they would sometimes say “What’s the story?” and to that I always said, “I don’t know.” I drew just to draw. I didn’t think about how to improve my work when I was drawing, I just did it because it was fun.

After I graduated from high school in 2021, I was accepted to Otis College of Art & Design. Back in 2019, I toured the school’s campus and just felt like I needed to be there, like I belonged. The classes at Otis were a lot more difficult and challenging than I had anticipated before coming. I thought art school was going to be a lot easier, and boy, I was way wrong. This is currently my last semester and I’ll be graduating with a BFA in Game and Entertainment Design in May of 2025! It’s coming up a lot faster than I thought! I’m both excited yet nervous to see where life will take me.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It hasn’t been a smooth road; like I said, it was very different from what I expected. I wish it were, though, that would be awesome! But life isn’t easy, and during COVID, since I wasn’t at school, I felt stuck in an intense art block. Being at school was my main outlet for drawing; now that I was back home, the ideas just weren’t coming as much as they used to.

Before I started at Otis, I would journal about my day and also write a to-do list for the next day. It was a great motivator and also a great way to wind down. During my first year at Otis, assignments and projects kept piling up and my workload felt like it was never ending! It got harder and harder to use my journal because I was always working, and the times that I’d usually be writing down stuff in my journal became times when I’d keep working on a project that was due the next day. There wasn’t any wind down until I was finished, there wasn’t any time left just for me. Each day, I’d get more stressed and more anxious to the point where I’d feel myself being weighed down deeper and deeper.

Stress has been the main obstacle in my life, and it’s something I’m still trying to manage today. Something I’ve figured out on my journey is that the speed at which I do art can also depend on my mentality and mood, and I’m always trying to find ways to meet myself where I am, and find ways to steer through my experiences and art-blocks with compassion and gratitude.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I’m a Visual Development and Illustration artist. As a Visdev artist I design the look, texture, feel, and mood for different creative projects. Something as large as an entire world to something as small as a cup, or prop, or insect. I originally went to Otis to get into Animation, but switched my path when I was talking with a concept art graduate and they said, “You could either work in Animation, and you could animate what the production gives you, or you could create those designs and illustrations so they can be animated.” So, I moved my major from Animation to Game & Entertainment Design, where I learned more about character design, prop design, environment design, and creating the look, and mood of the key art illustrations to hold it all together. I still love animation, I’m just open to work on another side of it!

People know me for my environment art and illustrations. I like to make my work fun, stylized, and playful, while sometimes adding whimsical elements. My goal for my work is to be expressive especially with my shape design, while showing a unique sense of color, value, composition, and texture. I think I’m most proud of where I am right now. I’ve learned so much about art that I feel I don’t want to stop, and continue learning new ways to design, or get a better understanding on what I already know or could know more about. I think that’s what sets me apart as well.

Outside of that practice, I also like to go outside and plein air paint! Plein air means “in the open air”, and it’s the practice of going out and painting from observation. In my practice, I like to plein air paint with gouache paint: a paint that “activates” when it interacts with water, so I can use gouache paint like watercolor! I am really glad that I got into plein air painting, and painting in general by taking a class at Otis by Gary Geraths, which was called Landscape Design & Painting. The class also helped with making better design choices, and taught me more about how to use color in my work.

It’s nice to bring my gouache paints and be outside to paint because when people see others paint out in the wild, those people get happy. And I like to make people happy! As for hobbies, when I’m not sketching, I like to pet and play with my cat Sir Lancelot, I like to run, play video games, and watch movies!

Can you share something surprising about yourself?
When I was in high school, I got into video editing as a hobby. I recorded gameplay videos, as well as just videos of my friends and I making each other laugh online. Through those moments, I self-taught myself how to edit and it’s a pretty fun pastime in my opinion! Since I’ve been in art school, I’ve been putting that aside to work and improve on my art skills, and when I graduate I’m sure I’ll pick that up again.

In my free time, I like to do cardio! That’s mostly because in high school I was a long distance runner. Woah I did a lot in high school that’s crazy! But yea, I did both the 1600 meter, and 3200 meter races in track & field, and also ran 5Ks in Cross Country. I think that walking, running, or hiking is a great way to be outside. It’s also a nice break from working on stressful projects, and in my opinion, it feels the same as meditating.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.jordancintron.myportfolio.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tentodanofficial
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordancintron
• Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/tentodan

Image Credits
All pieces are by Jordan Cintron! (Me!)