November 18, 2019

Meet Rio Burton of Rio Burton Illustration in I’m actually located in Loveland, north of Denver.

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Rio Burton.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Rio . So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I’ve had one wild ride. I moved to England at 17 to study illustration to work in the gaming industry. After graduating from university, immigration laws changed and I found myself bouncing between America, Europe and New Zealand for two years, working odd freelance jobs while trying to figure out where I was going to be living and where to go from there. I ended up settling in Colorado, USA where I hit a wall with my career. In the UK I had contacts to get started working as an artist in the film industry, but now that I couldn’t live in the country I loved so much I felt lost. I hit some hurdles along the way, trying to sort out a Greencard for my British husband to come to live in the states with me. (Despite what people seem to think, they don’t just hand you a Greencard for getting married!) After we finally got our living situation sorted I actually felt like my art career ship had sailed and I was “too late” to get into the industry at 25! I’m so happy to be proven wrong.
What I liked about the thought of working in games or film was the storytelling aspect of it. I want to tell stories with my art. I picked up the comic Saga created by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples and was blown away by it. I thought wow! Here’s another medium I can tell stories through! That was it, I became hooked on comics.
I continued working odd freelance illustration jobs; book covers, tabletop games, etc while I started figuring out how to create my own comic. I began creating my comic Lucid Dreaming and doors continued to open from there. Once I had sequential art to showcase my skills I was getting hired by publishers and writers to draw for them. I still feel like my career is in its infancy after dealing with immigration for a large portion of my post-graduation, but I am happy to say that I’m working full time on my art now and I couldn’t be happier.

Has it been a smooth road?
Hell no! I feel like a lot of artists have to battle upstream to just get paid what they’re worth. Many artists have to work second jobs to start just to be able to feed themselves while they work toward their art goals. A lot of amazing comic book artists I know still have a second job to help support themselves. It’s a sad reality that the industry does not pay well and a lot of people don’t recognise it as being a “real job.” Learning how to run your own business is full of all its own hurdles as well. I was running a business in England before I moved to America and it’s amazing how much you have to relearn when moving to another country. Throw in some immigration hurdles just to be with the person you love. It took us 2 years before we could apply for the Greencard and thousands of dollars, so I was busy working whatever jobs I could just to be able to live with my husband. Sometimes life gets in the way, but you can always get back to your passion.

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Rio Burton Illustration story. Tell us more about the business.
I work full time as a freelance illustrator and comics artist. I suppose I’m specifically known for my fantasy and wolf art. Even in my comics, I try to sneak wolves into the story where I can. I’m proud of how far I’ve come in a short amount of time. At 25 I had no online presence. I had no clue where I was going and I was pretty depressed. I’m 30 now and I’m making a living creating the art that I want to create! How cool is that? What sets me apart is my own artistic style. I feel like people can look at my art and know that it’s me behind the illustration.

How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
I’m hoping that I’ll be pumping out creator-owned titles as well as creating variant covers for other comics. I love both and want to continue doing both my own comics as well as covers for others comics for the foreseeable future.

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