Uncharted Waters
Dean and the TAOD Team Paint the “Most Photographed Boat in the World”
“We were working with computer generated printouts that we’d put on the base of the boat, then clear coat over them to make sure the resolution was there. Then finding Dean, who could actually do better than that by hand? It’s pretty sick!”
- Antonio Bertone, Chief Marketing Officer, PUMA
Dean and the TAOD Team Transform PUMA’s Mar Mostro (Monster of the Sea)
Wanting to represent the nonstop battle between their ocean team and the sea, Antonio Bertone, Chief Marketing Officer for PUMA and their London-based design team conceived the original design for the Mar Mostro (Monster of the Sea) – an octopus, stretching the entire 70 feet of the craft, with its intricately detailed, siren red tentacles wrapped around the deck, the transom and the bow. It was originally intended to be printed onto vinyl sheets and applied to the boat’s exterior, but team manager, Kimo Worthington, worried the weight of the vinyl would slow them down.
“Antonio wanted it to look like it does in the drawing. 100%,” he says. “They wanted it to be vinyl, that way there’s no artist’s impression or anything. I went to a guy who builds powerboats… and showed him the artwork… He said, “I’ve got your guy. Dean Loucks.”
Dean spent almost three months in Newport, Rhode Island, meticulously hand painting the Mar Mostro. On a typical job, Dean’s projects are ready for paint. The Mostro, however, was different; the boat was being built around him at New England Boatworks in Portsmouth while he painted. When a section was finished, Dean would set up, paint the section, then cover it to protect the artwork from the construction dust and debris.
Nearly 3,000 paint hours later (not including the man hours spent clearing, sanding and buffing), Mar Mostro – Dean’s most ambitious piece to date – emerged ready to set sail on the angry sea.
“That was an incredible project to be a part of,” Dean says. “It was the most intense project with the greatest amount of attention to detail I’ve worked on, yet! Three years ago, PUMA had the better boat of anyone out there. Now, they’ve stepped it up ten times as much!”
Quick Facts About Mar Mostro Paint
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2,500 sq. ft. of painted surface
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96,000 circles used in the Stingray pattern that overlays the entire boat
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37,000 water droplets on the deck – each of which had to be shadowed and highlighted with an airbrush
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3,000 paint hours
Sea Monster Implications
Did he do too good a job? Watch as PUMA’s Ocean Team debates whether or not Dean’s artwork attracts whales!
