We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Fabián Ruiz a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Fabián , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

Three years ago I began to focus my illustrations to look for an editor that would give me the opportunity to illustrate a story, I began to post illustrations with that approach on Instagram and fortunately an editor contacted me and believed in me to illustrate a story called The Owner of the fire written by Ivan Pérez Téllez. The story entered a contest for the Secretary of Public Education here in Mexico and was selected to be in the public libraries of the schools and that gives me great pleasure since the story can reach many children so that they can continue imagining and reading. And thanks to this first publication, I have had the opportunity to illustrate some more

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Of course, I am a freelance illustrator from the city of León Guanajuato in Mexico. My interest in illustrating comes from wanting to share experiences that feel welcomed by the Mexican community, combining a bit of fantasy and pre-Hispanic elements.
I am focusing on illustrating stories for children and this is my third year doing this work. But I also do commissions for different clients and various jobs within illustration.

I am proud and happy to be able to do what I like most and be able to make a living from it, which is drawing every day. And what I would like others to know about me and what I do is that every day I try to improve my way of illustrating and communicating ideas in a better way and continue rescuing important elements to make Mexican culture visible, not from an exoticization but from a reality, the neighborhoods and streets where I am from and the skin color of the majority of Mexicans.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Yes, it has not been easy for me to be able to work on this. At first, when I left university I had 2 more jobs to pay my rent and other things. bit by bit I left the other jobs and made the decision that this was what I wanted. It scared me but I had to trust myself. There are days when being a freelance illustrator still scares me, but I see the journey I have and it gives me the strength to continue.

Being an illustrator in a country like Mexico is not easy, since not many people value the work or time of an illustrator, but I think that the illustration industry has gained more strength in the country and is showing others that this is also a job like the others.

How did you build your audience on social media?

yes of course. I started uploading works from my university when I was studying arts and processes of my illustrations. I collaborated with people from my city and that began to generate traffic on my networks. This was about 7 years ago, I know that networks don’t work like before but what I have learned is to be constant and create your own strategy to show your work and have a digital presence.

Also, don’t take it so seriously because it can cause self-esteem problems, so see it as a part of your job and have fun.

Contact Info:

• Website: https:// https://www.behance.net/fabioruiz
• Instagram: https:// https://www.instagram.com/ianruiz94/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fabianruizmu/

Image Credits

All images are property of Fabian Ruiz