February 13 - Tubby Koopa

"Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep."

~ Scott Adams

If Matt Falloon has a tutorial, you DO the tutorial.  That's my rule.

Matt has a knack for pushing balloons into distorted places and his designs are more than just a pretty weird shape — they are practicing the kind of precise, high-level techniques that make you question your sanity and curse your skills.  Matt puts you to work, and you grow stronger for it.  

The Koopa Troopa was built using Matt's tubby turtle design as a base and reminded me how much I'm going to miss those big, beautiful Qualatex heart balloons. My older stock has not aged gracefully, and wasn't good and handling the kind of aggressive manipulation a Falloon design demands.

In one of my early attempts I over-sized the head accidentally, but I am kind of loving the open-mouthed shocked expression it gives.  Also, I would suggest with delicate balloons to tie the hearts together last instead, as that is a more forgiving connection point to wrestle with when things have gotten tight.  


(view other turtles or Mario Bros)

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Other balloons by and inspired by Matt Falloon:

August 30 - Eric's Mario

"Video Games are bad for you? That's what they said about Rock 'N' Roll."

~ Shigeru Miyamoto

Eric Weinstein has released a good number of tutorials on both video and PDF, ranging from very detailed distortion techniques to quickly built linework items.

This is from a recent video series of his called "Party Delights" which contains some popular but quickly built designs.  Each of these has a bit of Eric's flair and he proves he can build each of them in under three minutes.

This Mario is designed to be wrist wearable, but could easily be made into a standing figure.

After building Mario, I thought to try for Luigi - but even with a thinner face and longer jaw I don't think I got the bean shape well enough, it looks like a green Mario to me, which is why I went for another attempt at one and built Fire Mario.

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Other balloon designs by Eric:

April 5 - Little Mario

“Go Go Mario
Today, full of energy,
Mario is still running, running
Go save Princess Peach! Go!
Today, full of energy, Mario runs
Today, full of energy, jumping!
Today, full of energy, searching for coins
Today, keep going, Mario!

~ The Mario Song (translated) - Link

I have played a lot of video games in my lifetime. This may date myself, but I remember when the go-kart place only had a baseball game where the pitches were a series of lights - Blip blip blip blip curve ball. I remember seeing the first Asteroids game, then Space Invaders. I frequented basement arcades, where in the dim lighting you had to place your quarter up on the screen glass to reserve next game, and when I was out of quarters I hung out just watching other players. I remember Buckner & Garcia's smash hit - Pac Man Fever. I owned the cassette tape, I lived it. I remember when 'the guy' from Donkey Kong got his own game and you finally learned his name, Mario Bros.

My college dorm had a Super Mario Bros stand up game, and if you flicked pennies into it just right - you could get it to register a coin inserted. This was back before things auto-saved your progress or games needed 10+ hours worth of cut-scenes and combo weapons, before permadeath became a novelty and considered 'hard mode' - you simply had three lives and made it as far as you skill allowed. World 6-3 if I recall correctly.

Mario has been an active companion on this digital journey ... but the fact he is restricted to Nintendo and I'm Xbox One/PC gamer, he is now just a fond memory.

This Mario is one from the extras section of Patrick Van de Ven's recent PDF release 'Little Guys'. The form works well for it, but I'll confess that it's not my favorite Mario build. I don't think my attempt at Luigi worked out too well - the shape of Luigi's head is different from Mario in that it comes down to a point at the chin rather than having chubby cheeks, which is somewhat signature to this balloon concept.

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Other Little Guys:


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December 15 - Mario and Luigi

The Mountain Goats & Kaki King
Thank You Mario But Our Princess 
Is In Another Castle

I was going to use the 8-bit graphic from the original Mario game in place of a quote, but I stumbled across this video.  Enjoy!

Gino François is the inspiration for these balloons.  Gino has an interesting style to his videos where he is in clown garb and makeup, with classical music playing in the background.  Instead of talking he communicates by being very showing his finger measurements and twisting very close to the camera to demonstrate.  This is great because it makes his tutorials useable by everyone.

This Luigi came as a special request. My original ideas was to try and keep to the holiday vibe by making it a gift exchange between the two Bros., but those pictures didn't work out great and I'm not sure it's obvious without Santa hats or something.

Once I made Luigi I decide he was a little "wide-faced", so to make them fit together, I tried to make Mario have an even wider face, so I doubled up his shirt loops as well.

I told you the one thing I know how to say, Through the bright ringing drone of 8-bit choirs.

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Other posts with Gino's designs: Show all