Very happy to have been selected along with so many talented artists to contribute a 1of 1 print for the Official Art of More Art Exhibition and Charity Auction for Men's Health. Benefiting the Movember Foundation and in association with Sony Crackle and the Poster Posse. Details below about how your bid for my "la Preciosa" print can help so many out there.

Below are the actual start to finish exploration for creating this particular vector art, created in adobe illustrator with a wacom intuos pro tablet.

The overall request was to created a stylized parody of an existing masterpiece. Lady luck would have it that Leonardo DaVinci's "la Gioconda" as many refer to as the "Mona Lisa" would be the piece for me to have fun with.

At the very start of the project I wanted to do a parody of one of Sony Picture's recent movie properties. Through Mona Lisa's "smile" I saw a point of similarity to leverage and create a "Slimer" parody. The requester loved the idea, but wanted to stay away from leveraging any existing movie properties.

(above) My second attempt had me exploring an 80's punk-pop-mehca - spin influenced by one of my favorite airbrushing artists - Hajime Sorayama. As you can imagine, this one was also kindly shot down. No problemo, getting shot down is part of the fun. So off I go exploring and thinking to what may fit the Brand Personality for the TV show- "The Art of More", which is about a group of ultra talented art thieves.
And as you may guess- why not bring in the title of the show and design Mona Lisa with a Burglar mask? ( shown below)

Annnd... yup, they loved the art burglar idea but they didn't want a signature poster design that could be used for advertising.  Rats! I'm always trying to strategize and offer more life to a project than just a "pretty picture" . But that's exactly what the request was calling for. I had made the mistake of trying to cross properties and marketing initiatives for the sake of "ownerable advertising". The client came back and had revealed that they REALLY liked my Gamora - Guardians of the Galaxy- Day of the Dead- Officially commissioned vector created for by Marvel studios ( art below)

my response " ok, ask and you shall receive, muhahahahah"
but with all honesty, I felt super challenged because I wanted to pay reverence to the Maestro, Leonardo DaVinci
and
also move the bar forward as to what vector art can look like.

Below is how I set up my working space in Adobe Illustrator- I import as many visual references and assort them to the side of my canvas.

I just didn't want to create a typical "dia de los muertos / sugar skull" illustration, but rather wanted to put my spin on the theme by bringing in creative/ cultural attributes that I'm very fond of and carry with me to this day as being a kid who grew up in the Bronx ( NYC) during the 1980s when there was so much graffiti and commercial advertising around him
( and obviously leverage my Mexican creative roots as well :) )

Here's a VERY early sketch ( shown below) were I wanted to bring some fun personality into the creative exploration by poking fun at the obvious- "Muerta y Bonita" ( Dead and Pretty).
Through this first stab at "base motivator" for the piece I then settled upon a popular attitude thanks to Ricky Martin's " La Vida Loca".

So I decided to play there within the fun yet wild and positive slang and create
" La Preciosa y La Vida Muerta "
( precious and the dead life )

Shown below- All the many vector anchor points, shapes, and brush strokes.

above : final vector art : " La Preciosa"
and your opportunity to show your support for Movember and bid to own my 1of 1print!
visit the link below to enter your bid for this worthy charity.
Click here to bid.