October 4 - Bat

"The bat flits at close of eve, the little birds are piping yet."

~ Alfred, Lord Tennyson

In French - Chauve-souris - bald mouse.

In German - Fledermaus - flutter mouse.

In Spanish - Murciégalo - blind mouse.

In Italian - Pipistrello - little evening one.

In my attic - EEEEGETOUTGETOUT - intruder.
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This bat design uses a Linda Truscheit's cat head as the main facial structure, I have been looking over past balloon concepts feeling a need to update and organize them.  I built a new "Balloon Concepts" page on the blog website that gives a pretty good way to look at the collections.  

(view other bats)

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Other balloons by and inspired by Linda Truscheit:

October 3 - Bat

"The bat is dun with wrinkled wings, like leafless ivy bound about a tree."

~ William Blake

While the bees are sleeping, night pollination is handled by the bats.

Mangoes, bananas and especially agave - so next time you have a margarita, you'll know who put in the work for that tequila!

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Andri Balloon shared this bat design on his YouTube channel - seems like it could be worn pretty easily.
(view other bats)

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Other balloons by and inspired by Isopresso:

October 2 - Bat

"And now at last, it comes: you will be free to fly into the night like a bat from hell."

~ William Faulkner

A group of bats is called a colony, a cloud or a cauldron.

A cloud I could see as a description of a swarm in the sky.

A colony - okay I'm with you, a community.

A cauldron?  .... am I wrong in thinking we don't need a "special flavor" group for every animal?   This one feels a little weak.  

"Bunch of" is a pretty good generic catch all.

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This bat design was supplied by Graham Lee on his YouTube channel.

(view other bats)

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Other balloons by and inspired by Graham Lee:

October 1 - Bat

"Sometimes the smallest things take up the most room in your heart."

~ A.A. Milne

The bumblebee bat lives in caves in Thailand and Myanmar.  It's the smallest bat in the world weighs about as much as a penny.

+2 cuteness points for the alliteration.

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The Jojo bat felt like a "must do" when I learned there was this little bumblebee guy.

The wings were a bit fiddly to get set initially, but stay fairly well once set.  

(view other bats or jojos)

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Other balloons by and inspired by Tobi Twist:

September 30 - Bat

"Like a bat out of hell,
I'll be gone when the morning comes."

~ Bat Out of Hell - Meatloaf

I just read that "blind as a bat" is actually a misnomer and that most bats actually have pretty good eyesight.

They rely on echolocation because it is more reliable in the total darkness they hunt in.

In total darkness I usually make loud sound immediately after running into something.   

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We're getting a pretty decent sized collection of bats here now! - this design was shared by balloonCA on his YouTube channel.

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Other bats:

September 29 - Bat

"And now at last, it comes: you will be free to fly into the night like a bat from hell."

~ William Faulkner

Being that this is the only time of year I apparently feel is right to post a bat, I should check a few off the list.

I kind of like the idea of finding a good 1-balloon (scrap acceptable) version of everything, so here is one that Michael Langerman shared on his YouTube channel that keeps a decent shape.

There is another one balloon bat you can make of course, but people usually groan at the pun.

(view other bats)

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Other balloons by and inspired by Michael Langerman:

September 27 - Bat

"Bats and owls and frosty winds, black cats prowl where mischief begins."

~ traditional Halloween rhyme

Vampire bats aren't really Dracula - they're closer to mosquitos.

They sneak up on sleeping animals, make a tiny cut and take a tiny sip.

Which I suppose is still pretty creepy.

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Darren Mortiboy shared how to make this bat and a Q Corner Showtime video.  Q ... I miss you. 
(view other bats)

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Other balloons by and inspired by Darren Mortiboy:

September 26 - Bat

"The world turned upside down - in which bats went swimming and fish flew in the air."

~ Angela Carter

Echo location.   

Somehow this process of radar pinging the environment and listening to the timing of the reflections is what keeps the June bugs from landing on me.

I guess what I'm saying is "Thank thank you you, bats bats."

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Isopresso had a secondary design on their channel with this hanging bat, again one that I suppose I was saving for just the right time of year.


(view other bats)

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Other balloons by and inspired by Isopresso:

September 25 - Bat

"The bat is not a bird, and cannot be compared with birds, but it is, so to speak, a mouse with wings."

~ Aristotle

We had bats move into our attic for a while, until we finally installed a one-way vent and blocked their entrance.

Not technically bats in the belfry, but not entirely inaccurate either.
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This bat design is one shown on the 'LS party Family' channel, aka Glam n Pop Balloons, a balloon business based out of Iceland. When I built the bat a few days ago I realized I hadn't made very many ... perhaps always waiting for the right time of year?


(view other bats)

September 24 - Bat

"Listen to them, the children of the night. What music they make!"

~ Bram Stoker, Dracula

I have to remind myself at times that bats are blind.

They fly a little wobbly, but they're managing flapping leathery wings to stay aloft - something no other mammal does well (I'll say having done no research), of course it's going to be a little haphazard.

Way more graceful than I'd be at least, smacking into trees like George of the Jungle.

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This bat is an Isopresso design that I've been meaning to build forever, but also during "Halloweenish times".

(view other bats)

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Other balloons by and inspired by Isopresso:

September 23 - Bats

"The farther we've gotten from the magic and mystery of our past, the more we've come to need Halloween."

~ Paula Curan

It's not early for Halloween, I'm still celebrating from last year. 

One challenge of the season is how early you can put the bowl of candy out without having to restock it.

It's like a delicious game of reverse Jenga.  (I lose!  Yay!)

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These bats were something I saw yesterday on a newer YouTube channel that's exploding with content - CG_Balloonaire (link).  They've only been active for 5 months, but post daily and have shared over 170 videos/shorts at the point I'm writing this - check them out!

(view other bats)

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Other Halloween themed balloons:

October 3 - Tatyana's Bat

The baby bat
Screamed out in fright,
"Turn on the dark,
I'm afraid of the light!"

~ Shel Silverstein Batty

Tatyana DjeTa Lyashko latest batch of PDFs are themed for Halloween, this is the first of a few I should be showing this month. All of them are fantastic, huge and really involved - I am really looking forward to learning them.

This one had some interesting ear distortion, but I didn't end up taking a picture until the next morning and air tends to leak back in to equalize pressure, Eric Weinstein had some techniques for dealing with that I should use a little more consistantly.  What like most about this bat is the way the wings act as support, to hold it up in a cute pose with the flower ... and that adorable face!  Pure win.

I love bringing in huge delivery pieces like this to give away - people get so excited, and I get to see their inner kid come out.

Battin' my eyelashes..	You and I should hang out
Help!  He's got me in his batting cage!

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Other posts with Tatyana's designs: Show all

October 1 - Bat

"Twinkle Twinkle, little bat,
How I wonder where you're at,
Up above the world you fly,
Like a tea tray in the sky."

~ The Mad Hatter

Here is the bat Rob Balchunas taught in Balloon Magic #80.  The bat looks great, and I imagine you could use this face structure to make a lot of other things.

A bit of a confession though, these images were created aaaaaaages ago, and just queued up to be published October 1st - in fact I'm going to do my best to have most of the designs this month themed towards Halloween.

In order to fit with the current way I put together with the web pages, I had to build another bat - it's interesting for me to compare the current build to something I created back then (plus how purple and unscathed Purple is!).  Even though it was only about 5-6 months ago, and I haven't built a bat since then - I can see an obvious difference in my own technique.  The images you see on the light blue background were created back in March(?ish).

I switched up the colors and thought I could get some sort of flying dragon with the same design.  But it looked just like a green bat, so I added claws, and then a body, and then legs -- I probably should have left it a green bat.  But if you squint your eyes, you can see this double-quad base could be a frilled lizard, a Cthulhu or some sort of floppy eared creature.  Even fails can be good learning experiences!

Oh no!  They say he's got to go! Go go quad-zilla!	I played my part, and you played your game, I give love, a bat name.
No stranger in the crowd could doubt ‘twas Casey at the bat..

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Other posts with Rob's designs:



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