May 25 - Nicole's Bee

I'm gonna steal you from your hive
Steal you away from every man alive
They can't see what you mean to me, queen bee

~ Grand Funk Railroad Queen Bee

I have had a special request to make a "Spelling Bee" for one of the teachers at my son's school for a while, and it's getting scary close to the end of the school year!

This design was originally published as part of the Frequent Flyers balloon benefit project, but now to everyone in the recent Balloon Magic magazine (#83).  It's interesting to see the similar head structure to the angry birds pig used to create something radically different.

There is actually a contest going on for a couple more weeks to show off the Frequent Flyer builds so I tried to get a good themed picture.

Spelling Bee - Contest Entry
His favorite musician is Sting

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Other posts with Nicole's designs:


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May 19 - Angrier Birds

“You will not be punished for you anger,
 You will be punished by your anger.”
~ Buddha

I had not met Nicole Greg before Sunday night, it was her birthday and yet she took the time to teach us these angry bird designs based on the movie (which had already released in Australia) in a webinar.    She is an Australian balloon artist with a rock-n-roll style who has published at least 5 DVD instructions based around quick link balloons, so if we have a Queen of Hearts, perhaps Nicole should be crowned the Queen of Quicklinks?  Lady Link? .... Zelda? ok, we've gone too far.

I like the nice distorted pear shape for the body, I didn't have a yellow to try building that style, but it was pretty similar.  The pigs use a pretty cool face structure, and the way she assembles it gives you a lot of control over the attachment points, making them nice and snug. I wasn't too taken with using the giant Qualatex eyes, I couldn't get them even and ended up with gigantic dialated pupils.  It's a disembodied floating head, but I definitely could see me using this structure again.

I haven't seen the movie yet (I have barely played the game) - but it seems like the pigs are the ones who should be angry.  Those gigantic supermarket-style eggs are twice as big, clearly store-bought and would be impossible to have been laid by these overly-aggressive flighted birds.  They can't lay claim to them just by nature of being a bird.  These birds are even stealing golden faberge egg replicas and causing wanton property destruction.  It's criminal.

Remember for your breakfast, the chicken worked a day on it - the pig worked it's whole life!

One of the things I love about these webinars is that I rarely know what we'll be building. It's most always been something useful and I've always learned something but I'm learning things I didn't even realize I wanted to know. It's a bi-weekly glimpse into the mind and fingers or someones twisting style.  Maybe someone I've never heard of!   I have been introduced to so many balloon artists through these bi-weekly gatherings.

Also, the webinar is FREE if you use your Facebook profile image to advertise the Bling-Bling Jam.  I've done much more for far less. :)

Day 1 - I have successfully infiltrated their ranks.	Not-so-angry Bird
We DO have bodies!