pro
Mauricio Pontual
AI Art Director — brands, campaigns & visuals.
New to Contra
Mauricio is ready for their next project!
AI Becomes Editorial - Tropical Test
Part of an ongoing personal series exploring the limits of AI in fashion editorial. This episode tests character and wardrobe consistency across a tropical setting across multiple frames. Shot with real product references to push continuity under realistic conditions. AI isn't the concept. It's the medium.
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1.7K
Adidas "Grown Underground" — Spec Product Design & Campaign
Personal study exploring AI as a product design tool. A Superstar made from zero — texture, color and material conceived entirely through AI, then directed into a full campaign. No physical shoe existed. Shot like it already did.
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976
Le Chameau — "The French Don't Stay Clean" Spec Campaign
Unsolicited spec campaign for Le Chameau 1927. Full creative direction: campaign concept, copywriting, outdoor advertising mockups, and a short film. Built entirely with generative AI tools. Demonstrates end-to-end brand storytelling — from strategy to final execution.
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547
AI Fashion Editorial — Motion Experiment
Short-form AI-directed fashion editorial exploring minimal motion and controlled pacing. Art direction, prompt engineering, and creative concept by Mauricio Pontual / @mphouse_studio. Shot in a street editorial aesthetic with focus on color tension and jewelry detail.
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840
Don't Blink — AI Fashion Campaign
Full AI fashion campaign built from a single reference frame. Art direction, model casting concept, wardrobe, location, and lighting — all directed through AI. Demonstrates end-to-end creative production without a physical set.
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434
AI Interior Design — Staging Fine Art in Space
Personal study exploring AI as an interior visualization tool. Every element was generated from scratch — room, furniture, frame, glass and lighting. The only real element is the existing artwork, used as reference to test how a print reads inside a fully directed AI environment. Proportion, light interaction and material contrast controlled scene by scene.
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The recipe survived the Bolshevik Revolution. The website did not.
Dona Irene is a 19th century Russian cuisine restaurant in the mountains of Teresópolis, Brazil. It was founded in 1964 by Mikhail and Eupraxia Smolianikoff, a couple who fled the 1917 Revolution and rebuilt their home four times: Russia, Mongolia, Shanghai, the United States. They arrived in Brazil in their seventies and started over one more time. The recipe crossed all of it intact. The restaurant's digital presence did not.
This project started as an application for Base44's Give It A Glow challenge. I decided not to enter this edition, but the process produced a complete case worth telling. What follows is a preview of the proposal.
The family rebuilt its home four times. The new website is the fifth rebuilding: the digital home that finally lives up to the story. The entire page architecture grows from that idea. The Our Story section is a five-chapter crossing that starts in the cold blue of exile and warms into the ivory of Teresópolis, the page you are reading.
The restaurant's Instagram already had a strong photographic identity: warm natural light, white tablecloth, blue and white porcelain, dishes seen from above. The site does not invent a new brand, it elevates the one that exists. I defined a system with ivory backgrounds, institutional blue, wine as the exclusive action color for the reservation CTA, and gold only on dark surfaces. The brand's original gold failed WCAG AA contrast as text, so I created a lighter variant for typography only, keeping the original tone as a decorative color. Typography: Cormorant Garamond for display, Jost for body, with a literary, contemplative voice.
Every dish and dining room photo was regenerated in 4K through Higgsfield (nano banana pro, img2img), always using the restaurant's real photographs as reference. The direction started from the house's own archive: the menu dishes, the porcelain, the warm natural light that was already the signature of the restaurant's Instagram. AI came in for editorial finish and resolution, guided by what the place really is.
The hero is a video generated in Seedance from an approved still: the house's artisanal vodka bottle floating on a neutral background, the cap unscrewing itself before the pour. The video does not autoplay, it is scrubbed by scroll. The visitor controls the timing of the scene with their finger, and when the gesture ends the toast appears: Nazdaróvia. To health, and to memory.
Built in plain HTML, CSS and JS, in two languages: Portuguese and English, with a language toggle right in the navigation. Sticky hero with scroll-tied video scrubbing. Birch forest parallax behind the story timeline. Staggered entrance on the menu section: each card rises with an expo-out ease, photos are revealed by a clip-path curtain while settling from scale 1.12 to 1, and the typographic label lands last with its letter-spacing easing into place. Everything gated by prefers-reduced-motion, replaying on every pass through the section. AA contrast audited across every color pairing.
Reservation agent prototype: visitors ask menu and schedule questions to an AI Superagent and book a table in conversation, with confirmation fired to the restaurant's WhatsApp. In the current preview the flow is front-end only; real integration would be the next step.
Claude Code as the development environment and direction hub for the whole project. Higgsfield (nano banana pro) for 4K img2img images with real photo references. Seedance for the hero video. HTML/CSS/JS with no framework. Product documentation, design system and prompt guide versioned alongside the code.
Creative direction, design, code and AI direction: MP House Studio.
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THE ORIGINAL REBELS. STILL HERE.
Vans hasn't changed the Old Skool since 1977. The people who wore it first haven't changed their attitude either, only their age. This project asks a simple question: what if the brand stopped treating its original customer as the past, and photographed them as they are today? Rebellion doesn't expire. Advertising just stopped looking at it.
Every image in this project was produced entirely with AI. No models, no photo shoot, no production crew.
mphouse_studio. Speculative project, not commissioned by Vans.
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The client needed to test new fabric options on product photos he already had approved, keeping every other element identical and changing only the fabric and its texture. Two problems were blocking this: the fabric reference could not be applied to the base at real scale, and several fabrics lost pattern consistency, with the weave direction shifting or distorting once mapped onto the product.
To solve this, I built a node based system in Weavy. A Fabric Input node processes the raw fabric reference, correcting distortion and rebuilding the pattern at true real world scale before it touches the base. A Mask Input node isolates the exact fabric area on each base photo using pre built masks, so the replacement stays contained to the right surface and geometry. A Master Seed node then locks that first fabric application across the full set of base images, fixing pattern direction, weave alignment and product geometry as a single reference state.
With that lock in place, a Master Color node takes over: it propagates the locked pattern and structure across an unlimited range of color variations, changing only the color value while everything else, scale, direction, texture, geometry, stays exactly as defined in the master. Each approved output is then routed through an Export node for production ready delivery.
The result is a system that removes both original blockers: fabrics now apply at correct real scale, and pattern direction stays locked and consistent across every color test, no matter how many variations the client needs to evaluate.
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Replicable AI Model — Locking Identity Across Shoots
A technical study on AI model consistency. Documents the process of creating a master image to lock facial structure and skin texture, then replicating that identity across different locations, wardrobe and lighting conditions. The trick isn't creation. It's consistency.
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365
Portfolio update, part 2. Refining the desktop experience — hero with live elements (rotating role, real-time Rio clock), a cleaner nav, and tighter pacing between sections. Structure is settling in.
The whole site — HTML, images, copy — is being built through Claude + Readymag, with the agent handling the implementation end to end. Case studies coming soon.
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3:13 PM
Odòyá, Iemanjá
AI + Art Direction
An editorial tribute to Iemanjá, the ocean mother. Every February 2nd, thousands gather at the shore — white flowers, candles, and offerings carried into the sea. A ritual of devotion that turns the beach into a sacred space.
Women in white lace and blue beads, carrying flowers and offerings into the sea at dawn. Produced entirely with AI — art direction, visual research, and generative tools.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DULhzxSDWlt/?img_index=1
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AI Campaign Study — Rayne Demonseed
What if a full campaign could be built from two reference photos?
A self-initiated study in AI-driven campaign production. Two product reference images. No client, no crew, no location shoot. From those two images, I built a complete cinematic sequence — multiple shots, camera angles, motion — using NB2, Veo and Kling as the production pipeline. The study was never about the board. It was about proving what's possible when direction replaces production. Two images in. A campaign out.
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RJ 021 — Streetwear Brand Field Test
Field test for a streetwear brand with no physical production yet. Full visual identity built through AI: product design, model, campaign and video. Proves that a brand can launch with campaign-grade visuals before a single item is manufactured.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DUlSiX4FCRe/?img_index=1
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AI Street Editorial - Fuji B&W Mood
This study explores how AI can replicate the grain, contrast and mood of Fuji B&W film in a street fashion context.
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D&D Creature Series — 4 Films Directed with AI
A personal study series translating Dungeons & Dragons creatures into cinematic short films. Each creature gets its own world, atmosphere and visual treatment. Directed with AI, not just generated.
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Key Visuals for Different Campaign Formats
A set of key visuals developed for Mitsubishi during my time on the account at an agency. Each piece served a different purpose, from after sales offers to product launch, feature highlights and dealership promotions.
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204
Velho Barreiro — "Keep It Original" Spec Campaign
Spec campaign for Cachaça Velho Barreiro. Product photography and art direction built entirely with AI, set against a traditional Brazilian tile background with caipirinha and petiscos. Classic doesn't need reinvention — it needs the right frame.
Completed work link: https://www.instagram.com/p/DT-rwbuDYZ7/?img_index=1
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JSON Makes AI Behave - Control the Input
: Part of an ongoing process series documenting how structured JSON prompts improve consistency in AI fashion generation. This episode demonstrates two key benefits: consistent character identity across multiple frames, and precise control over what stays and what changes. Control the input. Own the output. #portfolioreview
Completed work link:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DToZCp_jI5A/?img_index=1
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Disjointed (Netflix) — Spec Key Art Study
Personal study reimagining key art for the Netflix series Disjointed.
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Vans "Every Relationship Has an End" — Spec Campaign
Spec campaign and photomontage study for Vans. The concept explores the emotional attachment skaters build with their shoes over time, turning worn-out sneakers into relics worth mourning. Developed as a personal creative exercise in art direction and image composition.
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419
Forever Musician — Parkinson's Foundation Spec Campaign
Spec campaign for World Wide Musicians United and the Parkinson's Foundation. 240,000 musicians worldwide live with Parkinson's, many of whom lost not just their income but their identity. The idea: give them back their instrument and photograph the reunion. Real music therapy patients, real instruments, shot in black and white to strip everything back to what matters.
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235
Little Red Riding Hood — Book Cover Design
Personal study in editorial book design for a reimagined illustrated edition of the Brothers Grimm classic. The typography was hand-lettered and treated as the primary narrative device — chaotic, unstable, with the danger of the story living inside the letterforms rather than in illustration.
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"Fresh Isn't Luck" — AI Food Campaign Spec
Spec campaign exploring AI food photography and art direction. Sea to plate in 6 controlled steps. Cold light, deep blacks and texture built entirely through generative AI.
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Chanel No.5 — "One Drop" Spec Film
Spec film for Chanel No.5. A 45-second narrative built around the sensory experience of a single drop of perfume. Shot entirely with generative AI, directed scene by scene with consistent character, wardrobe and location. Paris streets to gilded interiors, one continuous visual world.
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