July 5 - Jojo Sheep

"You can shear a sheep a hundred times, but you can skin it only once."

~ Amarillo Slim

Every year, there is that one sheep who draws the short straw and becomes the first shorn of the season. A naked party guest at a wooly masquerade ball, trying not to make eye contact with anyone still fluffy.

Living the dream, but it's that one where you show up naked at school.

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This sheep is from the Tobi Twist Jojo Cuties collection, I ended up building it with a fluffier body, I think it worked well the way the eyes are built.
 
(view other sheep or jojos)

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Other balloons by and inspired by Tobi Twist:

April 30 - Dangly Sheep

"Why fit in when you were born to stand out?"

~ Dr. Seuss

I'm not sure why black sheep get a bad rap.  

They were the ones with the wool -- three bags full.  Enough for the master, his dame and the even little boy that lived in the lane.

Seems like the black sheep were pulling more than their weight.  

"Different" was all anyone saw.

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This dangly limbs design is from a recent YouTube video by the creator behind the Creative Balloon Handmade channel.  These are meant to be on a stick, which give them a fantastic sort of hand drum motion with the swinging limbs.  

Putting on a flower base makes it look wrong, like it's ... feeling gassy?  (or worse...)  I swapped to clear when making the black sheep which works great as it gives a base for the feet to anchor on as well.

(view other sheep)

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Other balloons by and inspired by Creative Balloon Handmade:

January 8 - Loopy Beaverz

Great works are performed not by strength, but by perseverance.

~ Samuel Johnson

I feel like I'm part of a musical montage, but living it slow real time as I sort of retrain my fingers and brain.  Later it will be cut to the Rocky theme song, but right now we are rocking out hard to a book on tape.

Consider this Day 3 in the "Quest to Build the Anything".

The beauty of a simple design is that you get a lot of attempts and freedom to play and experiment and try different approaches.  "I wonder if I could ..." becomes almost second nature, and if this is an experience point bubble, I want to collect as many of those as possible.

I originally made the beaver's teeth much bigger, but the effect of the large buck teeth carries even with tiny teeth since they're the only ones visible and having them big seemed to interfere with the log chew.   

Other balloons by and inspired by the David Brenn:

June 1 - Dome Head Sheep

"A nation of sheep will beget itself a government of wolves."

~ Edward R. Murrow

It felt only too obvious to make a sheep with the giant white geo blossoms using the big dome head style from the Balloon Brothers Geo Domes 2.

I used upsized versions of the a couple body styles we have used in previous sheep.

One thing you can appreciate about this technique is that it doesn't make the head heavy in the same way normal balloon distortion would.   The bases still had to be weighted for stability, but they were not terribly top-heavy.

The closest he would stay ...

(view other sheep)

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Other balloons by and inspired by the Balloon Brothers:

November 25 - Chibicoro Farm Animals

No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be? Suppose you had decided to follow Snowball, with his moonshine of windmills– Snowball, who, as we now know, was no better than a criminal?

~ George Orwell Animal Farm

One thing that I admire about the Chibicoro site (link) is how clean each of the designs are they create.

I've been using the form, but I haven't been as precise as I probably could be - so to attempt to remedy this, I am using 4 designs directly from the site and doing my best to pay attention to these small details. Keeping the leg/hand sizes the same, sizing the top and bottom bubbles correctly, etc. The one thing I will probably keep doing different than the site is in drawing the artwork vs. using decal stickers. It's pretty hard to draw in pen on a rounded surface and have things line up well, some of that is the light I use while twisting (low) and my eyes (bad) and my hand (shakey). But practice practice practice is the only way to improve.

One thing of note is the baby chick design called for "pale yellow" - I'm not sure what color that is, but I was able to get something close by stuffing a yellow inside an ivory.

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Other Chibicoro balloon designs:

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November 19 - Pip's Sheep

“The greatest fear in the world is of the opinions of others. And the moment you are unafraid of the crowd you are no longer a sheep, you become a lion. A great roar arises in your heart, the roar of freedom.”

~ Osho, Courage The Joy of Living Dangerously

Here is another creation from Pip Milford-Hughes, Pippity-Pop! - from her recent release Loving Line Work (link) , Baaaaaaarbara Sheep.

Pip really has a great collection of fast to build, yet still very cute animals.  This one could easily be built in under two minutes if practiced, maybe less.  Even though I almost never twist in a line type situation, it's great to have something so quickly/easily built that has a nice impact.

The instructions taught the white wool sheep, I changed some colors around to build the black wool.

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Other balloon designs by Pip:

September 5 - Two Faced Sheep

Bleating and babbling
we fell on his neck with a scream
Wave upon wave of demented avengers
March cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream.

~ Pink Floyd Sheep

This sheep is another example from David Brenion's video on Two Faced Balloons (link).

It makes good use of the geo shape as sheep wool, similar to a few other sheep that I've built for this blog, but to keep with the "two face" motif, it's shorter than others in order to give both sides of the balloon a front.  I tried different faces this time - adding the flower that is in the sample materials and then a munching mouth for the other side.   The munching mouth could use some chubby cheeks...

As with previous videos, this gives more details and different ways to achieve things instead of hashing over things that were previously shown.  This is one of the advantages the video process has over learning from a PDF, PDFs are all business - you can't as easily throw in an anecdote as to why you are doing something a certain way.

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Other two-faced balloons:

Show All David Brenion Designs

September 3 - Sheep

You’ve gotta meet this fellow
Livin' down on the farm
Because he’s pretty cool and mellow
He’s the king of the barn

When there’s mayhem in the meadow
He keeps his crew on track
For all his legendary adventures
They should put up a plaque!
For Shaun the Sheep

~ Shaun the Sheep Theme Song

The last two video's on Matt Falloon's OCD digital download are harrrrrrd.  I'm scared - It's not going to stop me, but I did notice I hadn't built his sheep yet for the blog yet.  I have built this sheep a number of times previously, but not here yet and I haven't really played much with it.  ... so I delay the inevitable.

Keeping with the Dark Souls theme that this DVD is -- this is a bit like getting up to the last couple of bosses and deciding you need to go level up a bit, finish the earlier quests.

This sheep is a great one to build in a linework situation, it doesn't take too long and the way Matt builds it would be entertaining to watch.  I really love working with Geo's - they offer such a unique look, and it's perfect for the wool.

A purple pig in sheep's clothing	How much do I have?  Three bags, fool!
Does it upscale?  Oh yes ...

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Other posts with Matt's designs:


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July 28 - Shweet Sheep

I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion.

~ Alexander the Great

This is the final day of Bling Bling Jam, but I have one more post set to go because I'll be getting back late tomorrow.  I'm writing this the night before I'm leaving, so I hope I've learned a bunch of new fun things to share when I get back!

This sheep is another from the Eric Weinstein Sweet Cheeks collection.  This is one of my favorites of the series, I thought the face looked a lot like Shaun the Sheep, so I tried making them with actual legs instead of just feet - and I love it with legs.  I kind of want to go try the others with more leg.

Short Cheeks	Ewe mad, bro?
N-n-n-no ... I d-d-d-on't have any more w-w-w-wool, thank you!	All's wool that ends wool..
I see ewe naked!

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Other posts with Eric's designs:


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