July 7 - Jojo Elephant

"What can you do to promote world peace? Go home and love your family."

~ Mother Teresa

Deep and thoughtful eyes

Move like quiet mountains.

They wait for the slowest.

They protect the weakest.

They remember.

I try to.

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This was another Tobi Twist Jojo Cuties from the collection, I love that he attempted one of the biggest land animals with the smallest technique.  

I ended up making one with a fat 360 body that seemed to keep everything in better matching proportions, at least from the side view ... hmmm ... I should have taken pictures of the side view.

(view other elephants or jojos)

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Other balloons by and inspired by Tobi Twist:

May 1 - Elephant Trophy

"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated."

~ Mahatma Gandhi

It's easy to forget what a trophy really costs.

This time, it was just a few balloons.

It could always be that simple, if we wanted it to be.

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Balloon Artist TOSHI is a talented and prolific balloon artist - his channel is something I definitely need to incorporate into this balloon borg collective, resistance is futile.  Inspiration though came when @TwistyTiffany shared her awesome build of this elephant design recently.  It was too cool to resist trying myself and I'm really glad to have taken the time to attempt it - the construction was an interesting and different way to put things together that is both simple and really smart, part flat weave and a bit of 'aerogami'?    

 
(view other elephant)

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Other balloons by and inspired by Toshi:

April 9 - Elephant Mini-Doll

"Nature's great masterpiece, an elephant; the only harmless great thing."

~ John Donne

"Who?"

This design was a form shown on the YouTube channel "MeyiaArtBalloon" (link).  They don't talk (in the videos I've seen), and the videos are sped up - but they have a great collection of very stylized cute dolls like this if you are able to follow along.

I tried building the body a few different ways, this is a great form to play around with and is the basic structure behind a lot of their videos.   

(view other elephants)

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Other balloons by and inspired by MeyiaArtBalloon channel:

February 9 - Elefunt

"Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up."

~ Pablo Picasso

I feel like some of my favorite posts start with the phrase "So I had this corny idea..."

So I had this corny idea ... this was an attempt at something like a "refrigerator worthy" kids drawing?  

Any sort of overlap kind of ruins the 2D effect I realized after making the cow.  So I tried a 'simpler' animal, a cow requires more cow-like features to look cow-ey.   An elephant needs a trunk.

(view other cows or elephants )

June 3 - Dome Head Elephant

“The very things that held you down are gonna carry you up and up and up.”

~ Timothy Mouse, Dumbo

So ... here's an elephant.  Shall we call it the Elephant in the Room?

I have rewritten today's post more times than I care to admit, but it would feel too weird to start posting again without at least acknowledging why the art world went dark yesterday.  

It is a terrible human flaw that it sometimes takes a great tragedy for people to effect positive change.  It's our responsibility now to effect that change - for George, for Ahmaud, for Tamir, for Alton - for countless others  I guess what I'm asking is what is the step after "go dark"?  

----  Here is the original post:

Again I'm playing around with what is the obvious thing to do with such a head shape (Geo Dome 2 by Balloon Brothers), and attach a big ol' snout.

I made the first in blue and thought it would be novel to use geos for ears.  This was after a few different styles, good but not great.

Having a greater variety of colors would be great, especially for these unique shaped balloons where you can't really cheat, but necessity is the mother of invention because there was one white faced elephant I could think of.

It's not a perfect Dumbo but there's something there ... 

(view other elephant)

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Other balloons by and inspired by the Balloon Brothers:

April 9 - Anthony's Bunny

“You can get help from teachers, but you are going to have to learn a lot by yourself, sitting alone in a room.”

~ Dr. Seuss on learning

Anthony Lena taught a class at this years Q Corner Convention called "What the World Needs Now Is... FUN!" where he showed a couple of his recent creations.

This was his rabbit with some wrapping distorted ears -- I thought to make it again in grey to practice the technique but got inspired to try something different. There is a lot of shaping in distortion -- it's definitely a tough and technical discipline to master but it allows for some very interesting shapes. 

The "cost" is the potential for darkening the natural transparency of a balloon, the whites look visibly different without double-stuffing - the grey balloons are more opaque so the difference is subtle but still there.



(view other rabbit, elephant)

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Other Q Corner Convention balloons:

February 25 - Dorb Circus Animals

When spider webs unite, they can tie up a lion.

~ Ethiopian Proverb

I've had these images for a little bit now and neglected to post them.  Here are some Dorb circus or safari-type animals using the basic design Buster Balloon shows in his latest tutorials.

The elephant is one that he demonstrates on the videos and the lion is one that he describes.  I thought I would make a quick tiger to lock in the design, as these use all the most generic body style.

My first attempt at the elephant I with for a basic 4-leg body, but the head assembly attachment point confounds it in a way as to have the head pointed straight down.  Adding a bit of a neck helped, but too much neck looked weird on an elephant and too little neck still angled the head weirdly.  I'm going to have to go back to the drawing board for that one I think.

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Other Dorb balloon designs:

Show All Buster

August 13 - Elephant

“We must join forces everywhere to stop the slaughter of elephants and rhinos. They feel pain, they know suffering. We must stop people from buying ivory.”

~ Dr Jane Goodall

Here is another awesome use of big bear head balloons by Dennis Bauyon, this elephant is huge and has nicely shaped, movable legs.  It's like an gigantic elephant action figure.

I made the trunk too large, or possibly could have angled the head a bit better, but he didn't stand up too well.  I had to have him standing on things so his trunk could hang down.

The Purple shot is from the travel reel.  I find it amusing that the slippers are on the wrong feet, but I'm working with the limited resources of "what's in the room".

Newly built!

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Other balloon designs from Bling Bling Jam 2017:


Other balloon designs from Dennis:

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June 26 - Loopy Elephant

“We admire elephants in part because they demonstrate what we consider the finest human traits: empathy, self-awareness, and social intelligence. But the way we treat them puts on display the very worst of human behavior.”

~ Graydon Carter

Here is one of my first attempts in using Tony Twist's Loop the Loop concept to build something "off the page".

Each year I donate a balloon package to our school gala fundraiser, in previous years it was to provide balloons for an event, but this year we opted for a lower 'buy it now" price and offer multiple smaller balloon creations.  This is the first of these - an elephant as decoration for someone's first birthday party.  I was happy that the Loop the Loop concept could work so well for providing a nice larger sized model.

I built a prototype first and decided the ears were a bit small and I wanted to experiment with a nice Lima-twisted trunk that could hold a cake.   I think I had good success in the decision to have a separate balloon for the tip of the trunk because it could more easily be offset to provide a nice base.  I made a woven cake but it ended up a bit large and heavy, so i had to simplify with what you see here.

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Other Loop the loop designs:

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March 4 - Rolly Pollie Elephant

On the fifteenth of May, in the jungle of Nool,
In the heat of the day, in the cool of the pool,
He was splashing…enjoying the jungle’s great joys…
When Horton the elephant heard a small noise.

~ Dr. Seuss Horton Hears a Who

Now that I've watched all the videos in Dan Staples' new Rolly Pollies 2 download (link), I wanted to try building one that wasn't on the list.  An elephant was the first thing that came to mind and got me wondering how I would attach the trunk.

My first attempt at a regular sized trunk looked terrible, so I scrapped it immediately. I imagine a grey 321 might work pretty well if they were available, but going with a thinner trunk was the only option really.

I first built the one with the thinner ears, and then the "Horton".

... after all, a person's a person, no matter how small!

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Other posts with the Dan's Rolly Pollies:


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January 3 - Unsmooshable Elephant

Once there was an elephant,
Who tried to use the telephant—
No! No! I mean an elephone
Who tried to use the telephone—
(Dear me! I am not certain quite
That even now I’ve got it right.)
Howe’er it was, he got his trunk
Entangled in the telephunk;
The more he tried to get it free,
The louder buzzed the telephee—
(I fear I’d better drop the song
Of elephop and telephong!)

Laura Elizabeth Richards Eletelephony

I figured it was time to put my money where my mouth is - or the balloon equivalent of that.  (Put the nozzle where my mouth is?)

I talk about how much I love balloon concepts and how versatile and awesome they are, and how you could use it for pretty much anything.  But I then move on or get distracted by the next shiny object.  There are a lot of days in the year, no sense on moving on so quickly.

This year I'm going to try and stick with a design longer than I might, and maintain a list of the balloon concepts or source along the way.

Since this isn't a published and named technique, I don't know what to call it - but with similarities to Scott Tripp's Smoosh technique, and for the convenience, I will dub this Unsmooshable.

Here is an unsmooshable elephant.  Since these are exploring how to build things different and better, I should point out the first guy was the one on the blue flower.   A first attempt usually involves a lot of trial and error, so when I do this I will do my best (depending on complexity/time) to do a second version and detail any differences if necessary.

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Other 'Unsmooshable' posts:


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January 14 - Elephant

I meant what I said and I said what I meant,
an elephant is faithful one-hundred percent!

This is the simpler version of Matt Falloon's elephant from his OCD dvd (link)

I first discovered Matt Falloon on the Balloon Blast Video Show.  His instructor segments were very well produced and his personality is a simple silliness that draws you in - his "Keep-Up With Matt Falloon" series quickly became one of my favorites on YouTube.

I realize I did just recently made his mammoth, but Qualatex has started producing grey quick links - so I wanted to play.

Now is it too soon to ask for grey hearts and 321's?

Circus training

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Other posts with Matt's designs:


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