August 10 - Octopus

"It swam crossways in the direction of the Nautilus with great speed, watching us with its enormous staring green eyes. Its eight arms, or rather feet, fixed to its head, that have given the name of cephalopod to these animals, were twice as long as its body, and were twisted like the furies' hair."
~ Jules Verne Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea

I was told if you learn one thing from a convention, class, DVD, tutorial - then it was worth your time. David Lima made my convention worth about 5!  David taught four classes at Bling Bling Jam, and since he's originally from Brazil - it's only fitting to say that they were worth Olympic gold.

David is a brilliant innovator/balloon artist, like a visiting scientist showing his latest discoveries. ...  However his first class was scheduled for 9 PM on the first night, in Las Vegas ... there weren't too many people there with me, but a few of us were rapt with attention. I might have let out a spontaneous "Whoa!" a couple times. That first class was introduction to a couple of the concepts that we used in the next classes. So they each suffered a bit for time as people had to catch up. (I'm not judging - it's Vegas, baby!)

I was already somewhat familiar with the Lima Twist from the webinar where the name was selected for him, but despite the name, you shouldn't think of this as a "twist" from the classical sense of balloon twisting. I'm a tad ashamed of the old "saliva method" for getting my fingers out of deep tulip twists.  Gross!  This is a concept that goes further than that, it opens up new twisting possibilities and great attachments. It's like a new genre of music, it's not one skill to add to your arsenal, it's a way to enhance all the skills in your arsenal. I find I am using these techniques all the time nowdays.

David won a Qualatex color contest with his incredible Octopus design, which he taught in his second class.  We were split into groups of 8 to make legs. I actually had to skip the very end for a dinner reservation with relatives, so I'm not sure how it all came together. I had made my leg and was helping others, but that's as far as I got... I used some online pictures and guessed. The head shape is a bit elongated, I'd like to try something different next time.

Thanks David!

I'd like to be, under the sea ...	Oh, my aching tentacles!
Something from tide pool, and someone who likes Deadpool. (Both purple!)
You ink, I oink.

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Other posts with David's designs:


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August 9 - Olympic Rings

Gergő-ish

... the six colors [including the flag's white background] combined in this way reproduce the colors of every country without exception. The blue and yellow of Sweden, the blue and white of Greece, the tri-colors of France and Serbia, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, America, Germany, Belgium, Italy, and Hungary, and the yellow and red of Spain, are placed together with the innovations of Brazil or Australia, with old Japan, and with new China. Here is truly an international symbol.

~ Baron Pierre de Coubertin, co-founder of the modern Olympic Games

I got a little distracted watching the Olympics and I didn't get a chance to build what I originally planned.  We are a few days into the games and already records have been smashed, the next generation of heroes have staked their claims on being the fastest or best in the world.  After some amazing swimming, USA is tied with China at 5 gold medals each - and Australia following closely behind.

Here is the current metal rankings:

Country	Gold	Total
USA	5	19
China	5	13
Japan	3	10
Russia	2	10
Italy	3	9
Australia	4	7

Sergey Loginov has an Olympic ring video companion to his torch.  This entry is "roughly based" on that.   I tried building this while watching synchronized diving, and this is one not designed for "winging it".  It's wonky looking, I should have measured. Thankfully Gergő Csatai just recently posted one more conducive to winging, similar to the top image.  That one was built during a few swimming finals. Finally David Lima showed a technique for making the smaller ring/buttons at the jam.  But I will talk more about him soon.  Now I sleep.

Sergey-ish

Do you know how to inflate these things?