October 27 - Ghost

"Breath is the bridge which connects life to consciousness."

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Balloons are ghosts.

It's your own breath in there, pushing against the stretchy costume you've decorated it in.

I guess a mechanical pump makes for fewer monsters.

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Dave Brenn taught this ghost in a webinar that he hosts on his Patreon page - one of the great things about Dave's lessons is they are always so much more than the "thing", they're chock full of the behind the scene kind of reasons why you would do something.  

(view other ghosts)

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Other balloons by and inspired by Dave Brenn:

August 18 - Ghost Wands

I don't believe in the stars or the planets
Or angels watching from above
But I believe there's a ghost of a chance
We can find someone to love
And make it last

~ Ghost of a Chance - Rush

Joe Mock showed how he builds a quick ghost wand at Bling Bling Jam this year, but honestly a big takeaway might have been how solid these two and three-color flower bases look.  They've got a polished, layered feel - you could use a plain round on top and literally drop it like a mic.

I've decided that wands are better than bracelets.  Wands are a display with a handle built in.  They're interactive, they demand motion.  They're built to be swung and pointed and bonk the next kid on the head.  (*Disclaimer: no kid party experience.)

Also, if you squint - it kind of looks like a little magical tornado swirl pushes these guys in the air.

Lil' Devil and the Hampire felt like appropriately creepy wand mates.

(view other ghosts)

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Other balloons by and inspired by the Balloon Brothers (Joe Mock):

December 27 - Li'l Bee

The hum of bees is the voice of the garden.

~ Elizabeth Lawrence

Jackie Ochitwa shared this design at the Q convention in 2020 -- I had planned on writing some text and setting it to post that October but well ... but as I recall, 2020 was pretty sucky, and I certainly fell off the planet for a bit.

Jackie again has an uncanny ability to make everything she touches into something cutesy, even a ghost bee.

I personally find it completely tasteless if slightly arousing to refer to these as Jackie's Boo Bees, so I will refrain from saying that .. any more.

But I won't stop thinking it.  Giggity!!





(view other bees, ghosts, zombies, Li'l Guys)

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Other Jackie Ochitwa inspired balloons:

March 18 - Amalgam

“We're all ghosts. We all carry, inside us, people who came before us.”

~ Liam Callanan, The Cloud Atlas

It's probably a good thing we can't see ghosts.

Most of them are terribly sad, they live with the regret of things undone, and wander aimlessly unable to affect the world.  They drift aimlessly, slowly deteriorating until they are absorbed by an Amalgam.

It's not  a cruelty, an Amalgam is somewhat janitor for the realm, and once it has grown sufficiently large it will return once again to join with the Great Progenitor.

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I wanted to play around with the robe style I used in Fiddler on the Green, but it didn't quite work out the way I expected.  Having multiple heads made the pattern less precise ...

April 30 - Grief

Jackie left on a cold, dark night
Telling me he'd be home
Sailed the seas for a hundred years
Leaving me all alone
And I've been dead for twenty years
I've been washing the sand
With my ghostly tears
Searching the shores for my Jackie-oh

~ Sinead O'Connor Jackie (link)

One of the favorite high school memories that my wife has shared with me is when she and a friend won tickets to a Sinead O'Connor concert.  (Click that link!!)  Sinead has an unmatched soulful power in her voice and songs, it's a shame that many people reduce her to "that one bald chick".

Jackie is a song about a woman dealing with the grief of losing her husband at sea.  Screaming "you're all wrong!" in denial at the man who brings the news, and never accepting it as reality.  She is haunted to search the shores, ever scanning the horizon in hopes of his return.

I built two balloons trying to capture the grief.  First was the older woman, refusing to call herself a widower, but then I took the lyrics literally and built a ghost version of her younger self.

The rough form of the balloon is based on Shana Brenion's cutie dolls and remains one of my favorite balloon concepts to make women with.

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Other cutie doll balloon designs:

All Shana

October 29 - Surly Ghost

When the crypt goes creak,
And the tombstones quake.
Spooks come out for a swinging wake.
Happy haunts materialize,
And begin to vocalize.
Grim grinning ghosts come out to socialize.

~ Buddy Baker and F. Xavier Atencio
Grim Grinning Ghosts

We're getting close to the end of the month, so I only have a few more of these surly dudes left to post.  I always find it surprising that I run out of days before I run out of designs to use a balloon concept for, and this one in particular I started by having no idea what I would make.

It worked out pretty well I think.  My brother presented me with a quote the last time I visited, "the absence of pressure is the enemy of art".  I think this exercise is proving the converse of that statement true - the pressure of building another 10 of these without any sort of template has encouraged a lot of creative exploration, and I've probably half-built and trashed more than I have shown here.

This ghost is probably the simplest uses of Buster's form.

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Other Surly Dudes:

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Other balloon designs by or inspired by Buster Balloon:

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October 29 - G-g-g-ghost

Casper the friendly ghost
The friendliest ghost you know
Though grown ups might look in anger and fright
The children all love him so

~ Casper the Friendly Ghost

Here was another irresistible post by Buster Balloon.  The ghost reminds me of Caspers mean brothers - and is chock full of Buster-style.

This was a struggle to put together and took a number of attempts to figure out.  It was a great usage of all of my extra "bits and pieces" of balloons that were pulled out of my bags - but made for a few funny candy stripe faces, I included that picture as well.

I think I have overloaded the local Starbucks with all of these Halloween balloons!

It's a den, not a living room!	Grim grinning ghosts come out to socialize
I'm the ghost of past chewed toys .. and I brought a buddy this time.

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Other posts with Busters's designs: Show all

October 17 - Piano Ghost

On the other hand, what I like my music to do to me is awaken the ghosts inside of me. Not the demons, you understand, but the ghosts.

~ David Bowie

This is an attempt to copy a design that Scott Tripp posted in the balloon forums recently.

The story around the image is - nine years ago he bought 22 cases of white 321 balloons. This is Scott, so that's perfectly normal. I'm not sure if he had a plan with them originally or was just excited about the balloons, but that year Don Caldwell (later Buster Balloon) came through his town on his 'TJam on the Road' tour. Scott gave him a bag and asked for advice on what to do with them, and this was the first design that came out of the bag.

I can see why he is still using it 9 years later. I toyed around trying a couple different faces.

I realized after setting the image in the creepy old room, that I should take pictures against backgrounds that are almost the same color, especially if the balloon is white. The blue and green backgrounds are reflective.

Halt!  Who ghost there?	I scream, delicious!
He's the piano in-spectre

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Other posts with Scott's designs:


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August 24 - Slimer

"That stuff went everywhere, by the way. In every crack."

Erin Gilbert (Melissa McCarthy) - Ghostbusters (2016)

I've been meaning to make Slimer for a few weeks now.

Dylan Gelinas really has some fantastic designs and his PDFs are just plain "fun" to twist with; whimsical, conversational and clear.  These big fancy balloons are really what I like to build most, and Dylan has some brilliant balloons to try and copy.

I took Slimer in to the office before I had a chance to take any real pictures, and he was so well received that he stayed at the front desk all day.  I kind of felt awkward about explaining a bizarre purple pig photo shoot to anyone who stumbled by, so I snapped these quickly as I was leaving.

Instead of remaking it, I tried downsizing to make a baby Slimer.  Predictably I struggled on spots that were originally 160's, but I bet it could clean up nicely that size on my next build now that I've played with it a few ways.

I loved the new remake of the Ghostbusters movie.  I confess I was a bit skeptical when I saw the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man in the trailer, thinking they were recycling the story - but it was a fantastic reboot, a shmorgasborg of shinanegans that certainly paid homage to it's predecessor.

I'm late for my job at Nickelodeon!	Sticky pistons?  How do you make those?
Yuck-toplasm!

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Other posts with Dylan's designs:


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