December 12 - Rudolph

We may be different from the rest
Who decides the test
Of what is really best?
We're a couple of misfits
We're a couple of misfits
What's the matter with misfits
That's where we fit in!

~ Couple of Misfits Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964)

Second here but the premiere model from Christopher Lyle's recent holiday balloon designs - A Very Yellow Christmas. This reindeer and the rest of the designs will be available on balloon-animals.com soon, but in the meanwhile you can contact Christopher directly if you wish to purchase it.

This is again very quickly built, and yet high impact - the flashing light for the nose really seemed to excite, sure it's just a light but people gasped like I was showing balloon magic.  There was also a bonus different "bit of magic" suggestion from Pookie in this video that would work great and spice up just about any holiday design.

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Other balloon designs by and inspired by Christopher Lyle:

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December 11 - Gingerbread Man

Gingy: Ok, ok...I'll tell you. Do you know the Muffin Man?
Farquad: The Muffin Man?
Gingy: The Muffin Man.
Farquad: Yes, I know the Muffin Man. Who lives on Drury Lane?
Gingy: Well...she's married to...the Muffin Man.
Farquad: The Muffin Man?
Gingy: The Muffin Man!
Farquad: She's married to the Muffin Man?

 ~ Shrek (2001)

Keeping on with a couple more designs, here is one from Christopher Lyle's latest balloon offering A Very Yellow Christmas.

This entire group of instructions are designed for quick line work and include the Lyle flair and playful irreverence we've come to love.  From classic Christmas designs like this gingerbread man and a reindeer - to a ... Christmas poo.

The balloon part of this is built very quickly - leaving most of your time for inkwork.  There is a lot of sharpie work on this balloon, but if you notice it's all simple designs and could be done really quickly with many corners you could cut.

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Other balloon designs by and inspired by Christopher Lyle:

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October 15 - Clockwork Pig

I break the walls
Get away from me
Leave me alone
Like the pig on the stairs
Hanging
In a groovy purple shirt

~ The Cure Give Me It

For anyone who has followed the blog this year, this should come as no surprise - but here is my attempt at a purple pig using the cheek design taught in Christopher Lyle's Clockwork Yellow instructions.

I used Betallatex this time because Qualatex has no lilac hearts.  You can see the difference in the two lilacs as I used the Q for his feet.  I tried for a chunkier look when making the peach blush version.

I know Christopher is a Q guy, but I have to say I believe this technique works a lot better with the long necked B hearts. 

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Other Clockwork Cheeks:

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Other balloon designs by Christopher Lyle:

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October 14 - Clockwork Lyle

Yellow-colored objects appear to be gold.

~ Aristotle

Here is one of the last balloons using the cheeks design from Christopher Lyle's Clockwork Yellow instructions, the man himself.

This isn't the first time I've built Mr. Lyle.  One of the (many) reasons for Christopher's success is he has a very distinct style - early on in his profession, his grandmother took him to buy a suit and suggested bright yellow, it has been a hallmark for much of his career.

Christopher has an enviable way of elevating balloon art.  More than his actual skill, one of the things I probably respect most about him is that he oftentimes goes out of his way to showcase the work of other balloon innovators, sharing a dazzling montage from his restaurants and encouraging others to support the designers.   He's a good person to be able to call friend.

In his promo material - he is wearing a black fedora, which I tried making but didn't really like the way it rested on his head.  Unfortunately when I was detaching it I popped his forehead, which is why the image with Purple has a different sized noggin (and now that I look closer, slightly offset features ....)

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Other Clockwork Cheeks:

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Other balloon designs by Christopher Lyle:

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October 13 - Clockwork Opossum

I was a little excited but mostly blorft. "Blorft" is an adjective I just made up that means 'Completely overwhelmed but proceeding as if everything is fine and reacting to the stress with the torpor of a possum.' I have been blorft every day for the past seven years.

~ Tina Fey

Opossum are oftentimes incorrectly referred to as possum.  A possum is an Australian marsupial given it's name for it's resemblance to the opossum, whereas the opossum is the name of the American marsupial.

"The more you know."

This opossum is another based on Christopher Lyle's cheeks design from his Clockwork Yellow instructions.

I struggled a bit with how to attach the legs, but kept it rather simple in the end.  Reducing an opossum to it's simplest form, it's an upside-down hanging-from-tail white-faced grey body rodent.

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Other Clockwork Cheeks:

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Other balloon designs by Christopher Lyle:

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October 12 - Clockwork Skips

I seem to be making all the characters from Regular Show....  I'm okay with this.

This is Skips, using the cheek design Christopher Lyle shows in Clockwork Yellow.  This time I was playing around with different colors and sizes of the components and saw a gorilla face.  I actually made two, but had an overnight cheek and leg deflation so I started over.  The body style this time is a bit like Bauldy's superdudes.

Skips (voiced by Mark Hamill) is actually an immortal Yeti and is oftentimes the voice of reason on the show.  Every 157 years he must defeat Klorgbane the Destroyer or the world will end. His actual name is "Walks", but he skips everywhere without exception, why he does so is revealed in an episode where everyone had to share their deepest secrets. It's because [spoiler!].

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Other Clockwork Cheeks:

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Other balloon designs by Christopher Lyle:

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October 11 - Oompa Loompas

Oompa Loompa doopidy dial,
This was inspired by Christopher Lyle,
If you'd like to learn from this fellow,
Follow the link to find Clockwork Yellow.

(link)

Once again I draw inspiration from Christopher Lyle's cheek design to create these Oompa Loompas.

I would say these are based on the original Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory - but the remake chose to use the actual book title.  I would be hard pressed to say which version of the movie I like better, there is nostalgia and the amazing Gene Wilder in the original, but it's a more heartfelt story with the amazing Johnny Depp in the remake.  I will just enjoy both equally, watch whatever is on and hope I'm never in the situation of choosing between the two which to watch.

I'm playing around with a Smooshy body style this time as well as trying out how to add hair.  First I made the over-the-head arc with the curls, but felt it lacked some stability so I tried a full head of hair on the larger of the two.

One of the things I'm enjoying about this balloon concept is that it's hard to get the exact size and pressure right in the base structure - so you can end up with radically different looking faces like these two.

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Other Clockwork Cheeks:

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Other balloon designs by Christopher Lyle:

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October 10 - Clockwork Violator

Once again your mind explodes with a searing pain. A floodgate of memories bursts wide. Yet it is her face that keeps haunting you. Always her face. Who is she? Then things begin to crystallize. You remember your funeral. Begging and pleading for someone to release you from the darkness. You're not dead. You can't be. Then you feel her presence. Warm, caring, soothing. But somewhere deep inside she feels empty now. She has no reason. No meaning. No soul. But your soul lives. While her's is dying.

~ Todd McFarlane - Spawn Creator

I had thought to make Pennywise using this cheeks derrived concept Christopher Lyle shared on his Clockwork Yellow video (link), but seeing as I just made Smooshiwise - I thought I would build the Clown/Violator.

I collected Spawn comic for a while, a fan of Image Publishing and naive enough to believe that the value of first issues would increase over time.  Al Simmons/Spawn is the protagonist, returned from death with a face scarred like Deadpool to find years have passed, his wife remarried with a child he was unable to give her.  He is an unwitting agent of the demon Malbolgia - because every criminal he kills bolsters hell's army.

The Violator is another demon who disguises himself in clown form, his purpose is to both train and weaken each new Hellspawn, infuriating them to cause them to waste their limited powers.

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Other Clockwork Cheeks:

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Other balloon designs by Christopher Lyle:

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October 9 - The Dungeon Master

~ Dungeons & Dragons Cartoon Intro

Back before Everquest, Ultima Online, World of Warcraft or even text MUDs, you had to get together with living human beings to "game".  I spent an immeasurable amount of time poring over the tomes and bestiaries.  Though I have lucked/cheated/bribed my way out of many a critical strike against my avatar, I have also bid sad farewells to a good number of foolhardy adventurers.

I loved this cartoon.

This again uses Christopher Lyle's take on Sweet Cheeks that he teaches in his Clockwork Yellow video.  I built a good number of these trying to get the face right - forgetting for a moment that when you use a concept, the idea is to get you close, not to have it be perfect.

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Other Clockwork Cheeks:

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Other balloon designs by Christopher Lyle:

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October 8 - Clockwork Gremlin

~ Key & Peele - Gremlins 2 Brainstorm 

The scariest part is all of that stuff actually was in Gremlins 2 ...

This is another usage of Christopher Lyle's alternative sweet cheek concept (sour cheeks?) shared on his Clockwork Yellow download (link) and the counterpoint to yesterday's post, Gizmo - this is a gremlin.

The gremlin is what happens when you feed your mogwai after midnight.  As cute and cuddly as Gizmo is, and despite the slapstick goofiness of it all, I do remember being terrified of the gremlins in the movie. 

... and cosmic coincidence - www.teefury.com has a Mogwai shirt as their daily exclusive:

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Other Clockwork Cheeks:

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Other balloon designs by Christopher Lyle:

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October 7 - Clockwork Gizmo

"But the most important rule, the rule you can never forget - no matter how much he cries, or how much he begs, never, never feed him after midnight.

... And keep him away from water. Don't get him wet."

~ Gremlins (1984)

I mentioned it when posting the Clockwork Yoda that this was a good concept usable for a bunch of other things, I figure this will make a good mini-concept for the first part of this month.

This Gizmo design was shown on Christopher Lyle's Clockwork Yellow as an example of some other things you could create using this technique.

I tried making a second one to put in the box and had the bright idea of using different colors, coloring white instead of brown, but it didn't really turn out well at all.  When I gave them away, I asked if they knew who it was -- "it's that guy .. a ... it's gremlins!"

[nerdblock]
This is NOT a gremlin, it's a Mogwai named Gizmo -- to become a gremlin, you would have to feed it after midnight.
[/nerdblock]

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Other Clockwork Cheeks:

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Other balloon designs by Christopher Lyle:

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October 6 - Clockwork Mickey

~ Steamboat Willie (1928)

Steamboat Willie is actually the third Mickey Mouse movie, but is known as Mickey's debut as it's the first distributed and first made with synchronized sound.

I already named the previous entry "Clockwork Mouse" - so here is Clockwork Mickey, also from the Christopher Lyle release Clockwork Yellow.  This Mickey is based on Patrick Van de Ven's "Little Guy" concept that was explored earlier on this blog, but with a completely different head style.

I didn't get a very good picture this time, I brought these in to Starbuck's while my youngest was at his dance lesson and thankfully took this picture there because my earlier photos at home were blurry.  I was also pleasantly surprised to see Katie - who has since moved on to manage her own store but was probably my favorite person to bring balloons for because of her excitement.

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Other balloon designs by Christopher Lyle:

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October 5 - Clockwork Mouse

The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men,
Gang aft agley.
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!

~ Robert Burns Collected Poems of Robert Burns

This design is another on from Christopher Lyle's download Clockwork Yellow (link).

Christopher credits Dale Campbell for the original inspiration for this design, as it is based on one of this "through the head" head band ideas.  Though the design was taught as a headband, I thought it worked well enough on it's own and made it for the office this week.

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Other balloon designs by Christopher Lyle:

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