February 2 - Swallow the Sun

Cast all the demons in the sea,
Into the abyss of the Earth,
To the sleep of the whales' song,
I want you to bury me. Bury me!

Swallow the Sun Upon the Water (link)

The inspiration for this balloon comes from the band Swallow the Sun.

Swallow the Sun released a new album last month entitled "When a Shadow is Forced Into the Light".  They are a Finnish extreme metal band that was recently given exposure on a YouTube channel I subscribe to - BangerTV.

Apparently the album is in part a tribute to the tragic loss of front man Juho Raivo's life-partner, Aleah Starbridge to cancer.  Art is built upon emotion, and this album is steeped in it - with slow dirges set against screaming rage and loss.  It's hard not to get caught up in the sentiment.

Fuck cancer.

This balloon took a few iterations to get something that I liked, at first I went with a more snake-like creature but reasoned that the actual "swallowing" of the sun wasn't as important as the "chomp".  I also tried a version with teeth and texture inside the mouth, but in a creature large enough to swallow a sun this would affect the sense of scale I was going for.