March 27 - Swan

"A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song."

~ Maya Angelou

The phrase "swan song" comes from an ancient belief that swans are silent throughout their lives, only to sing a beautiful, mournful song just before they die. Certainly badass - a graceful creature, a tragic melody, a final performance.

This swan design is from the Matt Falloon's BAC-exclusive "Birds" collection, and became another partial answer to the lingering question of what I am supposed to do with these remaining geo balloons?  

I also experimented with recreating the shape, which you can get close using normal balloons, but there is a certain tension in the center when using a geo that this shape really benefits from.

(view other swan)

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Other balloons by and inspired by Matt Falloon:

March 22 - Dove

"It will be a great day when our schools get all the money they need and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber."

~ Author Unknown

This line originated during the anti-war movement in the 1970s and was popularized by the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom who printed it on posters and bumper stickers to protest military spending and advocate for education funding.

Seemed appropriate to remember ...

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This balloon is from a Matt Falloon "BAC exclusive" on birds.  So to answer your question if there is a sidewall bubble.  Yes.  Yes there is.

(view other birds)

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Other balloons by and inspired by Matt Falloon:

March 6 - Mildly Haunted House

"One need not be a chamber to be haunted; One need not be a house; The brain has corridors surpassing Material place."

~ Emily Dickinson

Gerald's house wasn't malicious. It was just bored.

When Gerald Pritchard showered, just as the water hit the perfect temperature - "knock, knock, knock" echoed from the front door. Every time, he'd step out, dripping wet, only to find the house sitting quiet and still, as if it had been holding its breath.

And, in some ways, it was.

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This balloon was an accident while toying around with a narwahl I saw the face in a showercap.

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(view other Dave Brenn or Matt Falloon designs)

March 5 - Cider and Mino

"The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it."

~ Robert Swan

Cider and Mino are two new manatee at Epcot, so I decided to try and see if the Dave Falloon/Matt Brenn whale could work on a couple of these big blubbery bodies.  

Mino .. Nemo! I see what you did there!  

Cider .. Disney Insider Magazine, oh ... dear .... you sillies in the marketing department are just ... you .. I hope you're proud of yourselves.

I would have attempted grey but that was one of those colors that has not survived eight years of neglect in a box.  

Keeping to a theme of "chubby" then came the seal.  There is a quiet gentle magic to a manatee -- there is an "ARF! ARF! ARF!" to a seal.  

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(view other Dave Brenn or Matt Falloon designs)

March 4 - Whales

"The great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago."

~ Herman Melville

The final line of Moby Dick, and Melville crushes us under the weight of the meaningless of it all.  Oooof - a literary gut punch.

The whale design was originally taught on Dave Brenn's first "Rounds" instructional video, and later revised by Matt Falloon in a webinar on BAC. I'm including the versions and variations I have made between the two of them.

We learn things and go off to our respective corners of the world, a very specific focus group spending 500 hours refining something with a distinct set of styles/limitations/ideas.   

Dave came up with the clever distortion that makes a good whale form and is perfect for linework and what he needed at the time, Matt elevated it by giving the whale more personality with simple body fins and face shape but did so in a way quoting Dave's original work.

Sidewall bubbles in 10 year old rounds helped weed out some of the balloon colors that did not survive... thankfully one of the first steps.     

 

(view other Dave Brenn or Matt Falloon designs)

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Other whale balloons:

February 13 - Tubby Koopa

"Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep."

~ Scott Adams

If Matt Falloon has a tutorial, you DO the tutorial.  That's my rule.

Matt has a knack for pushing balloons into distorted places and his designs are more than just a pretty weird shape — they are practicing the kind of precise, high-level techniques that make you question your sanity and curse your skills.  Matt puts you to work, and you grow stronger for it.  

The Koopa Troopa was built using Matt's tubby turtle design as a base and reminded me how much I'm going to miss those big, beautiful Qualatex heart balloons. My older stock has not aged gracefully, and wasn't good and handling the kind of aggressive manipulation a Falloon design demands.

In one of my early attempts I over-sized the head accidentally, but I am kind of loving the open-mouthed shocked expression it gives.  Also, I would suggest with delicate balloons to tie the hearts together last instead, as that is a more forgiving connection point to wrestle with when things have gotten tight.  


(view other turtles or Mario Bros)

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Other balloons by and inspired by Matt Falloon:

December 10 - Bopup Angry Pigs

Angry Birds is a very simple idea but its one of those games that I immediately appreciated when I first started playing, before wishing that I had been the one to come up with the idea first.

~ Shigeru Miyamoto

Couldn't think of a better fit for the purple pig in Bopup style than the pigs from Angry Birds.  (angry pigs?)

The beanbag shape is perfect for this balloon, and though I did make a couple with balloon pig snouts, it didn't add anything and was a little distracting.

Angry Birds is actually a very beanbag-hurling type game, and these could make great game pieces. Slightly under-inflated or over weighted birds with some larger pigs and you have to makings of a perfectly themed wobble-ball game.

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Other balloon designs by and inspired by Matt Falloon:

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December 9 - Bopup Sloth

The point of sloths is to bring a sense of wonder, magic, and happiness to all other species. Did you know that every other animal's favorite animal is the sloth?

~ Ann Burton

Using the Bopup technique is interesting, but it's a tactile thing to see it wobble - something is lost when converting these to images.  After exploring a minimalist approach with so many Chibicoro, I don't think we really need to dive to deep into different ways to add rounds to this technique, so this will be one of the last.

Here are a couple attempts at a sloth.

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Other balloon designs by and inspired by Matt Falloon:

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December 8 - Bopup Nightmare

♫ And I, Jack, the Pumpkin King,
   have grown so tired
   of the same old thing. ♫

~ Jack Skellington

Few balloons have been as fun to give out as these Bopups.  Especially if I've brought balloons to them before, there is almost a look of confusion.  "But normally there are more twists.."  It's why I leave on the nozzle so there is no confusion.

It's been challenging coming up with ideas on how to use this form, but the lesson learned here is the same as it has been for every balloon concept so far -- as much as it seems that we are making it tough on ourselves by defining limits, we're also making it easy on ourselves by giving a clear set of limits to work within.

So here are Bopup versions of Jack, the Pumpkin King and his girlfriend Sally.

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Other balloon designs by and inspired by Matt Falloon:

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December 7 - Bopup Flintstones

Flintstones — meet the Flintstones,
They’re a modern stone age family.
From the town of Bedrock,
They’re a page right out of history.
Let’s ride with the family down the street,
through the courtesy of Fred’s two feet.
When you’re with the Flintstones,
have a yabba dabba doo time,
a dabba doo time,
we’ll have a gay old time!

~ The Flintstones opening theme

So I was thinking about how Matt Falloon's Bopup concept could be a stocky egg-shaped humanoid as well when it occured to me to try making the Flintstone boys.

I think the shape works pretty well for these guys, adding balloon arms would have looked stocky and out of place.  There was a good bit of shading for these guys but it covered fairly quickly, I was going to draw in the arms but decided they weren't needed.

These remind me most of "Weebles".

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Other balloon designs by and inspired by Matt Falloon:

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December 6 - Bopup Girls

“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.”

~ Albert Einstein

Each of these Bopup designs are ending up with some inkwork.  So I thought instead of fighting it I would embrace it - I have purchased Lindsey Foster's DVD Purty Faces (link).  I made a simple girl face using the bopup technique and started practicing purty faces. 

I felt the design was missing something without a body, so I made a short squat one with a neck the bopup can balance upon.  All the bodies are interchangeable.  It makes it feel more like a doll.

Lindsey has a great casual way of teaching, and includes plenty of fine points of detail along the way.  The instructions cover faces drawn on both rounds and normal twister balloons, cartoon and princess styles and what you might cut in order to do these quickly in a linework situation.

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Other balloon designs by and inspired by Matt Falloon:

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Other balloon designs by and inspired by Pookie:

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December 5 - Bopup Cats

In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this.

~ Terry Pratchett

Lessons were learned over and over again while making Chibicoro, but apparently I needed another one.  What you're seeing here is actually the simplified form of something I was over-complicating -- my first attempts at making a Bopup cat had back legs, a head section - ears.  It was losing the charm of what it was.

It takes a little bit of finesse to "do the move" to make these.  So to try and keep from messing up the final attempt, I can easily attempt the ink art on a round before putting it in the wobbledy one.

The secret here is the one without the claw marks on the paws is the prototype and not actually a bopup.  It had to be placed in between the grey and pink to be held still.

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Other balloon designs by and inspired by Matt Falloon:

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