September 3 - Dino Dave

"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing."

~ George Bernard Shaw (attributed)

Every morning Dave would work the car drop-off line, directing traffic, opening doors, and trying to keep several hundred parents from interpreting the parking rules for their special little angel.

... and one day he'd had enough.  

Rumor has it - they only bit one car.  In fairness, it was a VW Rabbit.

Dave was great - I appreciate someone willing to wear something ridiculous to try and brighten everyone's day.

Thinkback: January 20, 2016.

May 13 - Horseshoe Crab

"We're wiping out one of the world's oldest and toughest creatures."

~ Will Harlan, Senior Scientist, Center for Biological Diversity

It's a creature that has been shuffling along Earth's shores since before there were trees.  Older than dinosaurs.   Built like a prop from a sci-fi horror movie, but once again - WE are the monsters.

Their copper based blood contains an enzyme that's hypersensitive to bacterial toxins, so it's essential for testing anything that might at some point enter the human body: vaccines, IV drugs, surgical implants, etc.

Horseshoe crabs are captured in the wild, bled via needle to the heart, and released - often back into the same harvest zones.  Around 70% to 90% survive, but because they're not technically killed, the practice is labelled "sustainable".

Draining a living fossil to test a drug you can't afford.  Capitalism is an apex predator.

(view other dinosaur)

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Other balloons by and inspired by Isopresso:

March 30 - Dave's Wearables 3

In the town where I was born
Lived a man who sailed to sea
And he told us of his life
In the land of submarines
So we sailed onto the sun
Till we found a sea of green
And we lived beneath the waves
In our yellow submarine

It starts when you're building the hull, like a whisper in the back of your mind.  Hmmm mm mmmmm hmmm hmm hmm mm mm.

It doesn't matter if you're blasting a playlist, a podcast, or in total silence.  It finds a way in ... and grows.  It echoes inside your skull, bouncing and bouncing, louder and louder until the pressure is unbearable.  You don't want to say it.  You try not sing it.

But eventually.  Inevitably.  Resistance wears thin.  

WE ALL LIVE IN A YELLOW SUBMARINE!

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Dave showed us this simply stunning pirate ship and mentioned using the cannon portholes in a submarine which was certainly the inspiration.  And yes, the earworm chanted in my head the entire time ... 

I love the pirate ship design but some of these really do look best with a human inside - and the mast can be a little bit wibbledy-wobbledy without someone's arms in the rigging.   The dinosaur looks a bit like a prehistoric camel and could have used some more work, these fatty balloons are really hard to pressure fit into each other - that neck had to be tied down to get a normal face angle.  

(view other wearables)

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Other balloons by and inspired by Dave Brenn:

March 21 - T-Rex

"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change."

~ Charles Darwin

Imagine being top of the food chain for two MILLION years.  No predators, no rivals, nothing to fear.  If you were T-Rex, you were the apocalypse.  

Forty feet long, bone-crushing jaws.  It would take like a meteor or something to take you out.

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This is another Isopresso tutorial.  It seemed appropriate to build with a dinosaur color -- Qualatex Spring Lilac. I've never been a fan of this color.  Sempertex Lilac is so much more vibrant in comparison, this one looks "melted popsicle purple" to me.

 
(view other dinosaur)

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Other balloons by and inspired by Isopresso:

January 15 - Loopy Dinoz

"The world was much more interesting when there were dinosaurs around."

~ Stephen Hawking

Dave Brenn showcased a Loopy Heads dinosaur in his video, sharing insightful tips to refine the design. One thing I noticed after building - the front tusk of a triceratops shouldn’t be too large as it tends to dominate the focus and and make it look cross-eyed.

Dinosaurs shapes rely heavily on paleontologists’ interpretations of what they believe the assembled bones look like, even though they could be practically anything and any color, they are a bit difficult to portray without the extra features a body allows you to show.  

To keep things simple, I opted for a Baby Bop-inspired approach.

As for Barney, it was an experiment in building without cheeks. While an interesting attempt, I don’t think the cheekless design adds much here.  

(view other dinos)

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Other balloons by and inspired by David Brenn:

June 26 - Geo Dinos

All the explanations proposed seem to be only partly satisfactory. They range from massive climatic change to mammalian predation to the extinction of a plant with apparent laxative properties, in which case the dinosaurs died of constipation.

~ CARL SAGAN, Dragons of Eden

These are two of the balloon taught in the Balloon Brothers Geo Dome 2 tutorials, I thought it would be fun to make them together.  But then THIS happened ...

(view other dinosaur)

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Other balloons by and inspired by the Balloon Brothers:

May 28 - Dome Head Triceratops

"triassic thunder
echoes through fire storm and rain
triceratops falls"

~ Rick Parise

The difference between a balloon technique and a balloon recipe is whether or not you can use it as a launching point to make something else.  It doesn't have to make everything, it doesn't even have to make most things.

So the Geo Dome technique by the Balloon Brothers I think works well to create a creature a quick large sized head and could easily be a go-to for some designs if you like to go big.   The eyes are well placed, the slope of the head works well, it's sturdy creation - not overly complicated, you could prepare early.

Here was my attempt at a Triceratops.  I tried a few different ideas for the bony frill, kind of pleased with the 321 solution which sat the best around the neck.  The outdoor pictures ended up being mostly out of focus, and I had to wrestle that horn to get it straight - but unfortunately straight and in-focus didn't intersect anywhere.


(view other dinosaur, Dome Heads)

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Other balloons by and inspired by the Balloon Brothers:

May 5 - Dino Pirate

"Asteroids have us in our sight. The dinosaurs didn't have a space program, so they're not here to talk about this problem. We are, and we have the power to do something about it. I don't want to be the embarrassment of the galaxy, to have had the power to deflect an asteroid, and then not, and end up going extinct."

~ Neil deGrasse Tyson

Are we sure the dinosaurs didn't have a space program?  They had pirates obviously ...

This is another Rupert, the balloon-twister-extraordinaire "Phileas Flash" Appleyard creation that he shared in his "Balloon Adventures In Isolation" series where he was challenged to make a dinosaur pirate.

Phileas is making the most of his time launching into his passions of storytelling and balloon art and releasing regular updates on his YouTube channel (link).  His Fizzlewit's Hokey Pokey Fairy Tales is pretty amazing actually, he reins in some of the crazy extra that is Phileas  (if you know what I mean, you know what I mean) and has crafted some pretty great children's stories.

(view other dinosaur)

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Other balloons inspired by Phileas:

May 30 - Dinosaur

Some things start out big, and some things start out small, very small. But sometimes the smallest thing can make the biggest changes of all.

~ Dinosaur (2000) opening lines

Hervé Guyonnet is a newer balloon artist friend of mine from France.  I first met him in a Facebook group at the start of this year, he is on a 365-day balloon challenge.

His designs show off not only his skill as a balloon artist, but his creativity. As an example, his balloons for the challenge today was the Hindenberg crashing - before that was Alf I believe.  A month ago he started posting tutorials on his YouTube channel.  This dinosaur is currently the most recent (link) and uses a geo for the face, the perfect opportunity to try out one of his models!

Jeffrey Hayes was playing with this design and shared his version of a cow.  It's getting close to the end of this geo run, so I thought to include both designs in this one post.

Thanks guys!

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Other posts specifying geos:

Show all

May 23 - Geo Bronto

If I had a brontosaurus
I would name him Morris or Horace;
But if suddenly one day he had a lot of little brontosauri
I would change his name to Laurie.

~ Shel Silverstein If I Had a Brontosaurus

I have to say that some of the coolest things I have learned that use geo balloons are Matt Falloon's flowerbuds.

I built most of the designs he has tutorials for last year, but I noticed this brontosaurus hadn't been shown, and bonus that green is the ideal color.

I made a few versions using the emerald green to re-familiarize myself with the flowerbud form and get my bubble sizes right before trying it with the few remaining lime geos from my older stock.  Since the only emerald green balloons I own are these geos, I made due with a geo shaped head, which looks pretty decent if a bit large.

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Other flowerbud designs:

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May 18 - Geo Dino

Dr. Rick Marshall: Field rations are running dangerously low. Thusly, I've made the determination that, if need be, if faced with starvation, we will cook and eat Chaka. I've been thinking about this a lot, actually. If Chaka meat were the secret ingredient on Iron Chef, I'm sure Bobby Flay would probably serve it with roasted red peppers and a dash of cumin and a braised polenta. It wouldn't be an easy thing to do, but if you slow roast the little guy, I'm sure that Chaka meat would just fall right off the bone.

~ Land of the Lost (2009)

It's really nice having all of these extras outside my kit - I am really getting a chance to play without feeling like I'm wasting or having to re-order and re-stock.

The next bit of geo play involves this dinosaur David Brenion made, similar to the upper right image.  He released a video a few days after watching the Balloon Blast Show with the frog from the previous post using the idea. (link)

I've always thought this form would turn into an excellent dragon, so I added some wings and had him breath flames.  Next I added some teeth, they ended up giving somewhat of a goofy smile, so that one became my baby Slimer.

Finally I had one more that was the basic dino form, but I didn't want to give him a flower, so I made him fabulous.  He's my favorite of the bunch - a prehistoric Conrad.

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Other posts with David's designs:

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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