Hi,

I'm Monster Cadet

Well, not really. I'm Luis Aguirre and Monster Cadet was a handle I selected for my Instagram account a while ago and it kind of stuck.

I'm a creative who's worn many professional hats including photographer, artist, illustrator, creative director, motion director, music producer, and the occasional coffee runner.

My career's run me through the gamut, and I've had the pleasure of working with some great people and businesses. Ranging from Time Warner to local mom-and-pop shops and everything in between. I'm truly grateful.

I have a long-standing love affair with all the media I gorged on growing up. Mom and Pops were film addicts and would drag my young self to every film imaginable. Ratings be damned. I saw it all. From blood-soaked horror to long, boring dramas, I was exposed to the glory of film at a very young age with zero filters.

When I wasn't watching movies, I was playing video games, reading comic books, books and doing my best to stay out of trouble. Can't say I succeeded all the time, but I tried.

Today, my love for the things that inspired me growing up, translates into my creative life. Pixl-Pops is one of these projects. The idea was to encapsulate pop icons as minimal as possible to see how truly recognizable they were. What better medium than tiny pixels? I was hooked after creating the first one and haven't looked back.

I started this little project in April of 2021 and it was welcomed by a warm community of like-minded pop lovers and has been slowly growing since.

I'm lucky, grateful, and humbled by everything these tiny pixl-people have made possible.