August 11 - T-Rex

“Dinosaurs are extinct today because they lacked opposable thumbs and the brainpower to build a space program.”

― Neil deGrasse Tyson The Sky Is Not the Limit: Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist

Brian Potvin is The Ballusionist.  Based in Los Angeles, he is a hard working balloon artist who has done amazing huge sculptures and worked for some big media companies; Sony, Warner Brothers, TLC, NBC, Paramount as well as many others - even a Toyota commercial.

I had the pleasure of meeting him briefly at last years Bling Bling Jam.  Late at night in the jam room, people would stumble back in after a bit of "Vegas-ing" -  I overheard a boast about weight lifting, he glanced around the room and said he could lift me.  Brian is built, but not a large guy - I'm 210 pounds and haven't had anyone able to lift me since I was probably ten years old -- I took his dare.   Instant regret.  I was lifted with ease like I was a ten year old.

This year was rough for Brian, he was ill and much of his time was working with Aaron "Dizzy Doc" Hay on the big build of  the two Mount Rushmore.  He shared the stage a couple times with Dizzy Doc as they talked about planning and executing larger constructions successfully, and he had completely lost his voice by the time it came to teach his class on wearable dinosaur hats.  Regardless, he was still the consummate showman, super knowledgeable, quick-witted and full of anecdotes, he showed us how to inflate balloons with style and lots of flexing/posing.

His hats are quick and easy, but with an easily enhanced basic structure.  Someone asked me recently what I meant when I was saying "jam" with balloons.   I said (from my understanding) it's just a cooler way to say "playing" but it usually involves trying a bunch of different ideas and seeing what you like and don't like about them. This is why it's even better to do it with others.  Sometimes these blog posts end up being somewhat of a solo jam - so I thought I would share what I did on this one:

Build 1:  built from my notes and pictures the basic structure.
Build 2:  made proportions a little better, tried angry red eyes - included tongue.
Build 3:  Wanted a different color than lime, but using 350 instead of 360 made the legs a bit short.  Left white off in favor of all mocha body and split the hands, tried 260 tongue (not visible) and balloon eyes/eyebrows.
Build 4:  Hadn't thought of an artful way to include Purple in anything yet, so I went for my old standby - build it in lilac.  No 321's for this color so had to modify tail.  Less angry eyebrows, back to 160 tongue and friendlier face for the purple photo. (and ooops! forgot to separate the hands...)

I would make you breakfast, but your eggs stink.	You're mocha-ing me angry!
Movie Idea Pitch #95:  Jurrassic Pork