Febuary 27 - Rainbow Joe

"I carry a pocket full of sunshine and shoot rainbows out my hands."

~ Joe Tombarello

This phrase has been living rent-free in my head all week. Joe Tombarello marched into the jam room early one morning, trailing a bright orange scarf, and introduced himself in a way that makes you feel like you have known him forever. He's a warm cup of coffee handed to you when you didn't expect it -- but needed it.  At one point, he said the above quote in reference to being a bit of a magician when a child is upset.

... well. I want to carry a pocket full of sushine! I want to shoot rainbows!

I've built them before, but I don't have a horse in my meager toolkit of sunshine - let's fix that. This design from Juan Gonzales (link) takes only a couple minutes to build including inkwork and uses just three balloons and a scrap - but the eye design is my favorite part, I don't think I've ever made them this ... confidently?


(view other horses)

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Other balloons by and inspired by Juan Gonzales:

December 26 - Juan's Turtle

You can’t reach for anything new if your hands are full of yesterday’s clutter.

~ Louise Smith

Another something built ages ago and left to float in the infinite nothingness of unposted space.

This is a turtle design posted by Juan Gonzales.  

Juan does a lot of line twisting, but the designs do not suffer for it, here is a turtle he made a while back.   It looks super cute in 160's.   The face looks a bit "froggy" to me but the shell (lines) do a great job pulling it back to turtle.

The larger one needs some cheeks ...




(view other turtle)

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Other Juan Gonzales balloons:

June 29 - Juan's Squirrel

Repetition makes us feel secure and variation makes us feel free.

~ Robert Hass

 and this quick line-work squirrel.  He used the attachment point at the bottom of the belly to connect to a wand (but that makes for difficult pictures).

I can't begin to tell you how much trouble it was trying to get that heart to sit right ...


(view other squirrel)

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Other Juan Gonzalez inspired balloons:

April 6 - Rabbit-ichu

“All for one and one for all, united we stand divided we fall.”

~ Alexandre Dumas, The Three Musketeers

The balloon community really outdid themselves this last week.  Everyone is going to be out of work for a long while, so some folks got together and put together a free online balloon convention with over 100 individual segments spread over 5 days.

I didn't even realize this was going on until day 3 (!!), like someone dropped off a bag full of Halloween candy.  All of the content of a balloon convention without the travel, the cost or the social anxiety.

But additionally - a convention can be  a bit of a whirlwind with instructors/competitions/events, overwhelming before you add the need to sleep/eat/make merry.  Since we are all cooped up, I'm going to invite you all to share this Halloween candy with me.

One of the first twisting segments was with Juan Gonzales where he showed some quick line-work Easter designs and ways to re-use his Pikachu design.  It works great for the rabbit ears, but my favorite use is definitely the frog.

The blue bunny "should" be sitting on top of a carrot wand, but that makes for a difficult picture ...





(view other frog, rabbit)

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Other Juan Gonzalez inspired balloons:

August 23 - Swaddled Babies

"Ah, babies! They're more than just adorable little creatures on whom you can blame your farts."

~ Tina Fey

This design was originally posted by Juan Gonzales but has been shared repeatedly on Facebook, both as is and as a baby björn.  Christopher Lyle shared one with a baby bottle using 3' rounds that he made for a little girl about half the size of the final creation and received the biggest tip I've ever heard for a balloon artist,  and yet it is is probably one of the quickest built uses of the baby head print.

Juan hit it right with this design and I think it's fairly safe to say that a baby is a fairly universal balloon you could create for any party/event.

Not everyone wants the latest movie hero, zombie, ninja, alien or princess ... but who is going to refuse a swaddled wittle biddy boo?

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Other babyface designs:

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August 21 - Baby Rockers

“... And these children
that you spit on
as they try to change their worlds
are immune to your consultations.
They're quite aware
of what they're going through...”

~ David Bowie - Changes

Juan Gonzales posted his awesome version of a baby David Bowie a while back and I've had it saved in my inspiration folder for this very moment.

There are a good number of musical superstars out there that I could have chosen, and I still think it would be hilarious to make 4 baby KISS - but at last I decided on baby Prince.

I am enjoying how these baby heads (and arguably a few other prints) can add to a design.  The 'baby' adjective makes things more interesting than vanilla.  Somewhat similar to a creativity exercise game Scott Tripp had us play - where we chose from a list of randomly generated adjectives and randomly generated nouns.  The adjective takes something as simple as a train - and makes it a zombie train, baby train, robot train, minion train, evil train, space train, magical train.

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Other babyface designs:

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August 20 - Dapper Babies

There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.

~ Ernest Hemingway

Note that it's "Dapper" not "Diaper" this time!

Juan Gonzales posted a number of designs showcasing his new (at the time) baby faced print, and one that caught my eye was this dapper gentleman.

The body design he used was slightly different, this one is based on his kakamora (link).  I believe the compressed torso helps keep the baby look, any more midsection and it would be too adult.

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Other babyface designs:

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May 29 - Geo Turtle

See the turtle of enormous girth, on his shell he holds the earth. If you want to run and play, come along the beam today.

~ Stephen King The Dark Tower

This geo is from a couple of the designs shown in Juan Gonzales Extra Geo's PDF.

I'm still trying to use up the rest of these spare older white and green geos, so I was looking for green things to build.  The body was shown as the gator, but I wasn't really feeling the legs - they definitely work as a giveaway, but they don't allow for standing.  They poke out at an angle where the only pose you can use is sitting.

I added a shell and then changed the way the legs were mounted for the turtle.

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Other posts specifying geos:

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May 21 - Geo Snail

Good travels at a snail's pace. Those who want to do good are not selfish, they are not in a hurry, they know that to impregnate people with good requires a long time.

~ Mahatma Gandhi

Before Juan Gonzales was making videos, he made a couple PDFs that explored a bunch of different ways you might use a geo (link).  This snail is a bonus image included in his "Extra Geos II".  A geo makes a perfect snail shell, I tried adding something to the center section to give a rounder look, but I don't really like it as well as the unusual look of the plain.

I opened up the other bags of 7-year-old stock geos, the white seem perfectly normal, but the emerald green are off.  They seem .. thin(?) and smell terrible by comparison.  A number of them popped in my face while inflating and they don't seem to take the punishment of a distortion or sidewall bubble as well.

That said, I think it's actually pretty good practice to use them.  They force you to be much more careful and decisive.  Though it's a bit like eating mustard on your french fries -- it makes you really appreciate ketchup.

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Other posts specifying geos:

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March 27 - Kakamora

And the call isn't out there at all
It's inside me
It's like the tide, always falling and rising
I will carry you here in my heart
You'll remind me
That come what may, I know the way
I am Moana!

~ I Am Moana Moana

Kakamora from Moana, these are the little angry coconut creatures that chase Moana and Maui who try to steal the Heart of Te Fiti.

Juan Gonzales came up with this design and offered it free on his YouTube channel (link). I like the way he makes the mohawk, but thought I would try a couple different styles since they are all fairly unique looking.

It is sometimes difficult to hear while someone is twisting balloons in a tutorial. Juan works around this well by turning the main audio down and providing voice over. What is funny is that oftentimes he gets drowned out anyways by my own twisting.   😁

During the tutorial he suggested this might make a good quick Mike Wachowski as well.

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Other posts with Juan's designs:


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February 5 - Superbowl Babies

We're not here to start no trouble.
We're just here to do the Super Bowl Shuffle.

~ Chicago Bears

Juan Gonzales has posted a good number of variations using his baby head recently, including these Superbowl babies.

These baby heads are probably one of the most used prints I have, even though he face is not very complicated and could probably easily be drawn, there is a convenience to having a good print face that can't be overlooked.  Come to think of it - it's a bit weird, almost like a plain balloon would have too much potential, yet with these prints you know what they are going to be.

Thank you to Ella Grimshaw for sharing her usage of Juan's design, it was her post that actually prompted me to build these.

I see you've each brought your own ball ...

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Other posts with Juan's designs:

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January 10 - Juan's Superman

Live as one of them, Kal-El, to discover where your strength and your power are needed. Always hold in your heart the pride of your special heritage. They can be a great people, Kal-El, they wish to be. They only lack the light to show the way. For this reason above all, their capacity for good, I have sent them you.... my only son.

~ Jor-El Superman: The Movie

I missed going to Florida Super Jam this year, the theme was superheroes.  A number of live videos have shown some of the creations that were made there.  This one caught my eye from a lesson Juan Gonzales was teaching.

I built this while looking at a freeze-frame from that video.

I'm not sure about the internal structures, the legs stand a little awkwardly, but it all kind of comes together with the cape locking them in.

The first built was the one without the extra hair, having such a thin face made his ears look huge and silly to me, so I tried to widen it out a bit and give him a hair part.

"Look up in the sky, it's a pig, it's a man -- it's ... both!"

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Other posts with Juan's designs:


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October 10 - Poo Emoji

"If it's yellow, Let it mellow,
If it's brown, Send it down."

There really is no tasteful (ugh! Even that!) way of saying it, so I'll just come out and say it.  Juan Gonzales has been showing us his poo ... emoji's.  I originally tried recreating this from images he had posted, without realizing he was going to release a video.  Now that I have purchased his video, I can say his way of doing it is definitely more efficient and creates a better shaped body.

Outside of smiley faces and hearts, the poo emoji is one of the more used emoji's out there.  It's got eyes and cuteness, but .. it is what it is.   Honestly, if it were just that - I might have never even built it, but Juan has an enviable creativity and took it to the next level.  Since he had some themed for this holiday, I thought I would share.

Also, I so rarely erupt into laughter when reading things, but Juan had me in stitches when someone asked how to made these and he responded with "When's the last time you ate Taco Bell?".

I experimented with building this with the various size balloons, but all the creative use of the design is by Juan.  Thanks for sharing?

I'm a unique corn	Poo-mkin
Deadpoo	Why build 3 sizes?  It's my doody.
You are both so corny ...

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Other posts with Juan's designs:



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