November 3 - Pony

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when my fear is gone I will turn and face fear's path, and only I will remain.

~ The Litany Against Fear
Frank Herbert - Dune

I use the quote above because I'm a little bit nervous about the balloon concept for the first part of this month. For a long while I have been considering using Nao Osaka's style as a balloon concept, but it's going to be a lot of work and it's really kind of difficult.

Nao has a knack for creating fairly realistic creatures and he doesn't "cheat" by using other balloon sizes. Check out the links below for some of the designs of his that I've created from instructions and conventions I've attended, and each one is a masterpiece but each one has a fairly unique construction.

But let me also add another bit of Dune/Bene Gesserit wisdom: The harshest environment breeds the fiercest warriors.  Challenge accepted, lets do this.

I can tell you this took a LOT of balloons.  I made a number of versions of the face before settling in on something I liked.  The body was fairly straightforward as far as Nao style is concerned.  I ran into two difficulties - first, I used so many mocha balloons that I ran out and ended up having to use caramel, if you squint you can see the different color front leg and muzzle - and now you won't be able to unsee the differences.  Second, getting little stick horse legs to be the correct length and support the body weight is maddening at times.  I cheated and gave him foot pad flowers, which allowed for some better posing.

This was originally intended as a horse, but I think it would need a bigger barrel-chest and body, so lets call it a pony.

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Other balloon designs by or inspired by Nao Osaka:

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