August 11 - Spaceship

"It doesn't take a hero to order men into battle. It takes a hero to be one of those men who goes into battle."

~ General Norman Schwarzkopf

Patrol log 250811-9. Last sweep.

Visibility's already dropping. The storm front is clawing its way over the ridge, ionized clouds eating comms and turning sensors into static.

We've been running the grid for fourteen hours straight, finding nothing but silence and ghost echoes.

Control is calling us in, but I delay my response until I've already committed.

Just one more pass. They've got be be here.

The scanners hiss. It's just static. Then a single, trembling blip fights its way through the noise and I hold my breath, hoping against all hope ...

.. Found them.


(view other spaceship)

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March 29 - Dave's Wearables 2

"True teaching is not about giving answers. It's about showing the paths."

~ Noam Chomsky

I don't use 646/660s typically, so the opportunity to use some old stock balloons to practice a fun new design idea is super appealing.  Let's play around with Dave Brenn's "Ride Inside" a bit!

Dave made a great point about color choices.  My instinct is to treat every color like it matters, but in practice, some are just more usable than others.  Black, white and the natural tones like mocha or grey tend to be the most flexible.  Rainbow-y colors can actually be limiting - pink, for example, feels like it should be a pink "thing".  A pink rocketship works, sure, but without context it makes you wonder "why?" (and honestly, it was a practice attempt while watching, I wasn't trying to make a crude joke (tho ... USS Phallus?))

I feel like I've seen the bathtub idea used before, if not as balloons at least as a costume.  In fact, I bet the Spirit Halloween Store would have a bunch of corny ride inside inspiration ideas ...

(view other wearables)

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Other balloons by and inspired by Dave Brenn:

March 28 - Dave's Wearables

"The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires."

~ William Arthur Ward

Dave Brenn is a great teacher. 

He doesn't just teach how to make "forms of things".  His lessons are full of those extra little bits of magic - clever tricks, smart shortcuts, and unexpected details that make you better without even realizing it.  I would count his Patreon site as one of the best values in educational content out there.

His recent series, "Ride Inside" balloons, begins simple in concept - but is once again elevated by that special Dave magic and his real-world experiences using these designs. 

I cheated a bit on the length a few of them.  Since they are not being worn, I made their bodies a bit shorter - they weren't being poofed out by a torso.

(view other wearables)

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Other balloons by and inspired by Dave Brenn:

January 20 - Cult of Luna

I never used to care much for 'cookie monster' vocals. As someone who’s been a metalhead for mathity-math years, they used to grate on me—until someone reframed it.

Don't think of it as singing, it is simply an emotionally charged instrument.

It's bleu cheese -- super weird, maybe even a little gross when you first taste it.  But not only might you get used to it -- you might actually start to crave it a little.

I feel so lucky to have stumbled across Cult of Luna through a random YouTube next click. Not only are they brilliant musicians, but they’re also pushing boundaries - for their recent release, they put out a video game on Steam that syncs so perfectly with one of their songs ..  I am the perfect demographic I will grant you -- but it was a serious next-level idea and experience.  I was blown away.

(YouTube Link - A Greater Call)

December 30 - Hayes In Space

Two possibilities exist:
Either we are along in the universe or we are not.  Both are equally terrifying.

 ~ Arthur C. Clarke

Here is another from my bucket of misfit balloons, from 2017 based on carbon latex dating and some guessing ... miss you, Jeff.

Original text:

Jeffrey Hayes has created many lat-extra terrestrials that have visited this blog - this alien spacecraft is from his DVD Seriously Out There.

I made a couple before I realized that I had snowflake instead of star print clears ... so I made an Olaf-ship and called it done.

It doesn't really show up in the images, but the bottom of the ship uses a light.

Do you want to build a space man?

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Other balloons by and inspired by the Jeffrey Hayes:

May 25 - Spaceships

I am Groot.

~ Groot

Pascal Grooten is a daunting balloon artist to try and emulate.  I think I have just about every balloon image he has ever published in an inspiration folder.  His designs are pure art, unique and imaginative, latex poetry if you will.  If you attempt to copy it and don't do it well, it just becomes bad poetry.

These designs are copied or derivative of his line of spacecraft, and since the main form for the smaller craft is a geo - a perfect thing for this month's creativity challenge.

My goal was to try channeling the style rather than just copying the designs directly, but my first two at least ended up being bad poetry.  Pascal uses a lot of advanced techniques to get unique shapes and accessorize his creations.   Today was pretty busy and the daily deadline approaches - so after building a couple to get used to the process, I did my best to copy his air scooter (above) and space age (in yellow) designs.

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Other Pascal designs:

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Other geo designs:

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