Local arist Chenoa Gao mostly creates colourful illustraions for magazines, comics and children’s books.
So when she was asked to come up with moustache designs for (es to be auc(oned off at the Moustaches for Movember fundraiser event, she quickly said yes.
“I loved the idea of prin(ng the designs on silk ties,” says Gao. “It was a lot of fun working on this. And it’s for a great cause – kind of like paying it forward.”
Part of the fun was coming up with 18 different designs. Gao spent a lot of (me online and in anima(on books,and considered different characters versus different moustaches.
“I would think of characters, of what kind of person would wear a par(cular kind of moustache,” she explains. “Is it someone sophisticated? Is it someone elegant? Are they very manly? Are they a bit mysterious? Or are they a bit evil? Are they geOng ready for the opera?”
“I wanted the classic, simple moustache that has a Hannah-‐Barbera (Flinstsones, Jetsons) feel to it,” she adds. “That cartoon style that’s not too cartoony.”
She says what she enjoyed most was the evolu(on of the moustaches; many started off as basic sketches and progressed into pieces that were unique and special.
“They would often lead into other designs and take you down paths that are quite different,” she says. t was a cool journey.”
Gao hopes her designs will get more men to think of, and be proactive about, their health.
“I find that there’s a lot more media a\en(on on women’s health [like] breast cancer,” she says. “And women are more likely to get something checked out where men are likely to wait un(l they get sick. I know my husband’s like that. So the Movember event is important to raise awareness of these men’s health issues that don’t get talked about.”
