May 7 - Sloth

"Hang In There"
~ That One Motivational Poster

Tobias "Tobi Twist" Stengel is a expressive German balloon artist that has an interesting style to his videos and the balloon art he shares.  He doesn't speak, it's all performed and emoted like he is in an old black & white cinema.

Tobi, simply put, is an artist.

Probably based on the current world circumstances, but a number of balloon artists have returned to their side projects.  Previously inactive YouTube'rs are making videos, or getting back to balloon art blogging ...

Not only is this sloth efficient and effective to build - I just looked back and it's my favorite.
(view other sloth)

April 2 - Sloth and Seal Loop-Head

Slow down, you move too fast
You got to make the morning last
Just kicking down the cobblestones
Looking for fun and feeling groovy

~ Simon & Garfunkel, The 59th Bridge Street Song (Feelin' Groovy)

These are a couple more of Mr. Boma's Loop-Head designs but not ones he demonstrates.

A sloth is one of my wife's favorite animals so this was planned from the start.  This is a one-toed sloth.  When building it I thought how it would be amusing to do something interesting with the toes, whether or not it was a 3 or 4-toed sloth, or a combination.   But the added toes just made for a bit of a jumbled mess holding onto the vine and distracted.

The seal I just thought looked cute, and I had an idea that I wanted to play with a different body style.  I also had a bit of a wastebasket idea that it would be funny to put him on dance floor.   Seal ... clubbing.




(view other sloth)

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Other Mr. Boma inspired balloons:

December 9 - Bopup Sloth

The point of sloths is to bring a sense of wonder, magic, and happiness to all other species. Did you know that every other animal's favorite animal is the sloth?

~ Ann Burton

Using the Bopup technique is interesting, but it's a tactile thing to see it wobble - something is lost when converting these to images.  After exploring a minimalist approach with so many Chibicoro, I don't think we really need to dive to deep into different ways to add rounds to this technique, so this will be one of the last.

Here are a couple attempts at a sloth.

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Other balloon designs by and inspired by Matt Falloon:

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January 30 - Quad Sloth

They call me the sloth
Way down in the ghetto
Italian Spaghetti
Singing falsetto
Sleeping all day
Rip Van Winklin'
Spend my nights in bars
Glasses tinklin'

~ Phish The Sloth

Recently in the balloon forums someone asked to see versions of a sloth, and a nice variety have been posted - from realistic versions to Sid, the sloth from Ice Age. On the heels of making the koala, I figured I would try my hand at a sloth using Jeffrey Hayes quad bod technique.

One of the biggest complications with using this form is that it is not a very pose-able design, the body looks cute with squat against the head, but the head faces rigidly forward - come to think of it, it might be nice to try a two-duo quad bod to separate the two, hmmmmm.  I wanted to get a sloth in motion so I tried adding some simple legs. I'm not sure I like the result so I then made a "classic" version.

A balloon concept forces you to think in the simplest of terms when attempting an animal:
* What is a giraffe? Yellowish, long neck, brown spots.
* What is an elephant? Grey, trunk, enormous ears, tusks.
* What is a koala? Grey and white, big ears, prominent nose.
* What is a sloth? ... I went with "brown, prominent nose and eyes that stripe down the side of the face, three toes"