December 8 - Koala

"In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect."

~ Alice Walker

I heard audio of a koala recently and I'm not even sure what to call it - a warbing bellow?  

Whatever the sound was, I would have never matched it to something so naturally ... snuggly.

Be that cute and no one cares if you burp.

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This is another one of the examples Patrick uses to demonstrate his show the "Holy Snail" technique.  I love how the nose looks on the face, and even more once I started seeing it as a happy yelling face. 

*burp*

(view other koala)

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Other balloons by and inspired by Patrick Van De Ven:

March 31 - Koala Loop-Head

"Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty."

~ Albert Einstein

Playing around some more with the Loop-Head technique Mr. Boma teaches, this koala is one he shows in an example with a similar body to the panda.

I might replace the panda with this in a few days ... 




(view other koala)

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Other Mr. Boma inspired balloons:

June 23 - Loopy Bear

I do not think the measure of a civilization is how tall its buildings of concrete are but rather how well its people have learned to relate to their environment and fellow man.

~ Sun Bear, Chippewa

There were a couple bears shown in Tony Twist's Loop the Loop download (link).

The brown bear, panda and koala are all part of the release, but they are close enough in design to group together here.  Plus so far I have been building mostly what Tony has taught and it will help me speed through the rest to start leveraging this idea into other creatures.

This is the first time I experimented with using a smaller size Loop the Loop.  The form transfers well, but I need to figure out a better way to make the eyes as they are bulging out pretty badly here.

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Other Loop the loop designs:

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January 29 - Quad Koala

When my youngest son was taking me to the movie Moana, the projector broke - so we were forced to go to the movie Sing instead.  As I reluctantly entered the theater, I asked if he would rather see Rogue One again which was starting about the same time ...  I'm glad he didn't go for it, because I rather enjoyed the movie.

I wouldn't go so far as to say it's fantastic, but I did find myself emotionally involved in many of the sub stories that were part of it.  As a father, I'm a bit of a sucker for "looking for his parent approval" stories, and both the Koala and Gorilla did a great job at tugging my heartstrings.

I took inspiration for this Quad Koala from balloon artist and face painter - Maria Behrendt, who I noticed has a Facebook profile koala that uses a quad body type form.  Thanks Maria!

I first tried keeping it simple with no arms (green base), but when I built one with larger ears I couldn't resist adding hands and a bit of eucalyptus.  I think it rounds out the belly nicely.