Raul Urias — A passionate for illustration
At his 28 years Raul has done what many dream. His passion for drawing took him to pursuit his dream to work for Marvel. Once he achieved his goal, more defiant aspirations took Raul through unexpected paths.
To me, Mexico is a country with a very strong cultural roots. I love to see how Mexican culture has overstepped oblivion and survived trough generations, adding changes that responds to the different eras in history but keeping the essence of its ancestors. The pride I feel overcome my jealousy, when I see a country that fights successfully against globalization and still conserve and show to the world its roots.
Make the decision of interviewing Raul wasn’t easy. We looked at portfolios of many other illustrators from Mexico, most of them with fabulous works and in general with a very exceptional drawing skills. However, we thought Raul’s work was unique among so many talents. On his work I see a preoccupation for searching a style, something to make it different from others and still expose in a subjective and intelligent manner the Mexican roots.
Chatting with him, is very interesting to see how passionate he is. Since he was a child there was a rush for improving in what he decided to loved the most: drawing. His goal was to draw for big comics brands and to achieved this goal, he began to hang out with people who shared his same interests. Some of these friends were an example for Raul to achieve his dream. Working on comics gave Raul a very solid human figure drawing skill that also become one of its strongest pillars in his work.
The good news for many was that Raul got tired of drawing using other’s aesthetic. Combining what he learnt studying Graphic Design, he began to work developing his own style. Like for everybody, a hard labor that requires time, study and effort, but also took him to amazing and unexpected results.
Raul says that he has always been concerned for having a style that can be interpreted globally.
Since I met Raul I realiced he is a person eager to always be learning. He talks passionately of all those artist who once inspired him and follows actively the work of many other artist, events or things that might inspired him. Always in the eternal search of the perfect image his hand will produce someday. That is why he is never satisfied with his own work. According to him, when he finishes his work, something new is found somewhere that needs to be incorporated in his work. Is for that reason that his work has a continuous metamorphosis which is very interesting to follow.
I never consider myself as an artist,
because I wasn’t the best or the most skillful,
but for sure the most passionate.
The comercial work of Raul is very wide and doesn’t show any signs of resting. He has been smart at selling his style and has been working with big brands such as Nike, ESPN or Gatorade, among others. Usually working exhaustively, his amount of comercial cases can leave the impression that there wouldn’t be time to develop his personal work. However for Raul, there always will be time to incorporate new shapes into his personal work.
Raul has very clear that the illustration field is not the best in Mexico. Like in many other developing countries, illustration is often undervalued and belittled. The paradoxical of the topic is, that illustration is a luxury that not all companies have the possibility to pay. This happens because an illustrator who works to discover its own style becomes unique, for that reason, no one else would be able to do his/her job. This is commonly understood by huge companies who are eager to pay big amounts of money to people that is capable of creating something unique and different.
Nonetheless, Raul talks about the under value, the illustration field has in Mexico. For him, the blame fall into the illustrators, who doesn’t value their own work and ended up giving it away for a few money. I agreed on that with him.
I think that visiting Mexico was a great experience for us. We learnt about one of the strongest cultures of the world by the hand of one of his most kind representative. We took a great impression from a country who has fought to maintain intact its roots and has taught its citizens to wear it with proud.
The anthropological Museum
Raul Urias favorites:
Animal: Rattlesnake
Música: Rap
Comida: Chiles Colorados
Película: Forrest Gump
Libro: Steal like an Artist (Austin Kleon)
Written by: Ricardo Nunez Suarez
Translated by :Ricardo Nunez Suarez
