July 17 - Jojo Baymax

[fist bump]
"Balalalalaa."

~ Baymax - Big Hero 6 (2014)

I LOVE Baymax.

They are making a live-action reboot of Big Hero 6 ... 

Did a bunch of creatives get fired? These live-action reboots notoriously add nothing to the original, and some might argue that they taint the license entirely. I submit for evidence, the reviews of Snow White.

Let alone that it steps on the countless hours of work and heart put into the original, as if there was some hidden flaw they are trying to correct.

A reboot is a lazy cash grab. Make the next episode, you lazy bums!

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But yeah .. I'll go.

This seemed an obvious thing to build Jojo style when fiddling with it.


(view other Baymax or superheroes)

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Other balloons by and inspired by Tobi Twist:

April 26 - Baby Powerpuff Girls

Sugar, spice and everything nice
These were the ingredients chosen
To create the perfect little girls
But Professor Utonium accidentally
Added an extra ingredient to the concoction
Chemical X
Thus, The Powerpuff Girls were born
Using their ultra-super powers
Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup
Have dedicated their lives to fighting crime
And the forcеs of evil

~ Powerpuff Girls Intro

The city of Townsville... was quiet. Too quiet.

That usually means someone's about to get glitter in their eyes.
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These designs were posted recently by the Creative Balloon Handmade YouTube channel, and I'm a complete sucker for technique-based twists.  Show me a "teams of things" and I'm powerless to resist.  Plus, they're 'baby' Powerpuff, so they pack like 10x the lethal dose.

I think Blossom's hair is my favorite part - smart and simple pigtails.  I also enjoy that the way the bodies are constructed makes them sit very easily, but you have to be careful to keep things small to avoid a badonkadonk.  

<

(view other superheroes)

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Other balloons by and inspired by Creative Balloon Handmade:

March 25 - Moli Superheroes

"You're not Superman, you know."

~ Mary Jane Watson Spider-Man 2 (2004)

Kawaii crusaders, these balloon superheroes are from the "MOLI BALLOON" YouTube channel (link). She's a Hong Kong-based artist who nails the balance of small-body, big-charm -- think "chibi-adjacent", a touch more detail and refinement to the basic chibi form, elevating it with a bit more details.

There's a moment in the Superman build that got.... At one point I realized I was gently pinching and massaging to shape his package, and now that's all I see when I look at the design. Super indeed - super awkward.  🤣

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Other Superhero balloons:

January 28 - Little Body X-Men

"When an individual acquires great power, the use or misuse of that power is everything."

~ Charles Xavier X-Men: The Last Stand

Playing around with Stephanie's Little Body idea, this time with some superheroes. 

I never really enjoyed the Jean/Scott/Logan love triangle - and honestly found it a little unsettling that some cool leather jacket dude would come in and romance away your long term girlfriend.   

That said, I also never really found Cyclops to be that cool or powerful.  He effectively has the uncontrolled power of one of Superman's eyes?  ... and if he loses that goggle, he can't open his eyes or he'll nuke the city.  He's a liability.

(view other Little Bodies)

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Other balloons by and inspired by Stephanie Morace:

April 29 - Li'l Heroes

“Anyone who does anything to help a child in his life is a hero to me. ”

~ Fred Rogers

Just a quick trip into some superheroes using Jackie Ochitwa's Li'l Guy body form.

Spiderman ended up being more pen work than I imagined at the outset, the plain blue did not work well as the body.

Hulk is the first of these that was built with (a ratty mop of) hair.

Venom showed that the shape of the head is important, which points out something interesting.  Our heads are typically more vertical oval bean shaped, these "kawaii" heads are horizontal beans.  Round shapes don't seem to work well for humanoid heads.

... and yes, Dr. Manhattan was built anatomically correct.   If curiosity is getting the better of you, I've made it clickable.




(view other superheroes)

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Other Jackie Ochitwa inspired balloons:

January 22 - One-Punch Man

“Who decides limits? And based on what? You said you worked hard? Well, maybe you need to work a little harder. Is that really the limit of your strength? Could the you of tomorrow beat you today? Instead of giving in, move forward.”

~ Saitama One-Punch Man

On an alternate earth, Saitama has trained himself to be a superhero by doing 100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups, 100 squats and a 10km run every day.  It took over three years but he effectively broke the limits of strength and now he can effortlessly defeat any creature with one punch.

So he's bored -- it's one of the more fantastic anime out there in my opinion.

Saitama is the kind of "pure" hero that you can admire, with a firm grasp of right and wrong, but boredom is his arch nemesis - he says in one episode, “In exchange for gaining strength, have I lost something more important as a human being? Emotions used to swirl within me when I fought. Fear, impatience, anger… But now… Day after day, after one punch I go home unharmed and wash my gloves.”

I was inspired to make this balloon after I saw Namco Bandai was coming out with a One-Punch Man fighting game.  The very idea is hilarious and when I looked -- indeed there was a graphic of Saitama standing as champion, his combo score: 1.     Bwwahahahhahahhahahaaaaaa!  Love it!

I had to redo his face, a bored expression is very similar to a worried expression, it's in the shape of the eyes. 

May 4 - Thanos

I'll do my best not to include any spoilers here, but if you haven't made the time to see Infinity War by this point - it's really on you.

For me, every superhero movie is defined by the villain, the better the villain the better the movie.  Black Panther was fantastic in this respect, there was a sympathetic quality to Erik Killmonger - you were torn between understanding his quest and the ends at which he was going about it.

Thanos's motivation is pure, he wants stability in the universe - it's what he is willing to do to achieve it that makes him a villain.

Brilliant.  Can't wait for the next installment.

November 21 - Chibicoro Superheroes

... But if you make yourself more than just a man, if you devote yourself to an ideal, and if they can’t stop you, then you become something else entirely.

~ Ra's al Ghul Batman Begins (2005)

I was chatting with someone today who expressed a bit of disappointment that I was embracing such a seemingly simple concept as balloon art when I just finished making some amazing Nao balloon art.  Paraphrasing my reply here:

Chibi's are simpler balloons conceptually, but more challenging than building some bigger structures.  Small balloons are unforgivable, like Picos - slight variations in size and pressure are obvious, you have very little room to work with to realize your creation and in order to keep things in scale, and very few balloon options to use.

Here is a perfect example, I had visions of building a bunch of heroes, but tried and tried again playing around trying to get a form I liked.  I started with an idea to add a head on top by pinch twisting a very soft bubble, thinking I had to have feet color underneath the pants.  I was feeling lukewarm on the first attempts so I built the two cleaner versions to the right below which gave me an extra attempt at drawing the faces, but those didn't feel right either - more like a chubby Pico than Chibicoro.  Finally I tried a couple that closely followed the Chibicoro form and they ended up being my favorite.

Excelsior!

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Other Chibicoro balloon designs:

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August 19 - Baby Heroes

If I go crazy then will you still
Call me Superman
If I'm alive and well, will you be
There holding my hand
I'll keep you by my side with
My superhuman might
Kryptonite

~ 3 Doors Down Kryptonite

The nice thing about these baby faces, is that they can be used for almost any humanoid if you incorporate those specific character details.

So here is my attempt at "super babies".  I started building Super... infant(?) but when I was finished he seemed too obvious of a choice, so I tried coming up with a couple others.

These faces come in both mocha and blush, but my choices are fairly limited with superheros I could use mocha with.   I've already built Luke Cage on this blog - but the Defenders just released on Netflix, so I felt it was fair game.  In fact, I was side watching it while I was working on these.

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Other babyface designs:

Show all

July 13 - Drax

Ow!  My Nipples!

 ~ Drax Guardians of the Galaxy 2 (2017)

That simple little line was so perfectly timed it sent my youngest son and I into a fit of laughter followed by a series of uncontrolled giggling aftershocks.

Drax is one of the heroes in the Guardians of the Galaxy movies and another usage of Bauldy's Super Guys balloon concept.  Obviously there are no printed rounds for this guy, but thankfully he's bald so even though I made it a little bit tall, a simple head style works.

Drax was my favorite character in the movie, perfect comic relief in a meathead sort of way.

There is not much back story to Drax in the movie, but Drax the Destroyer began as Arthur Douglas.  Both he and his family were killed by Thanos, but Kronos (Thanos' grandfather) preserved his soul and placed into a poweful body meant to destroy Thanos.  Originally he could fly and shoot powerful blasts, but he lost those powers and now he is just super strong and resilient.

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Other Super Dudes:

All Bauldy's

July 12 - Captain America Super Dude

Doesn't matter what the press says. Doesn't matter what the politicians or the mobs say. Doesn't matter if the whole country decides that something wrong is something right.

This nation was founded on one principle above all else: The requirement that we stand up for what we believe, no matter the odds or the consequences. When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth, and tell the whole world -- "No, YOU move."

~ Captain America

We're off-grid now using Bauldy's Super Dudes balloon concept.

When I was looking for quotes for one of the earlier balloons, I ran across this one for Captain America and decided I wanted to build him again.

I did only build the one, but again I thought I would post an attempt with the printed round head.  It looks ... bleahh ... Spiderman was really the only printed head that has worked so far in this exercise.  I realize the goal is to upgrade these "line work friendly" but I'm not a big fan of the printed rounds.  Surely there is an easier-yet-quick face that can be built...

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Other Super Dudes:

All Bauldy's

July 11 - Batman Super Dude

(**LANGUAGE WARNING**)

Batman is the fourth and final of the tutorials from Bauldy's Super Dudes (link).

This one included an interesting technique to create the head.  My first attempt at it (pictures were blurry, not included) I made the head a little bit small and it looked really weird.  Next I made the gigantic face below on the left and it prompted the observation that it looks okay to err on the side of a large head, but the same is not true about a small head.  I went a little off grid on the final head.

Since this is another available printed round, I thought I would see what it looked like - I don't have a flesh colored sharpie, which would have helped some but it's inverted colors anyways.  White printed on black has a big problem - the paint cracks off if the latex stretches too much.  →

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Other Super Dudes:

All Bauldy's

July 10 - Superman Super Dude

The whole point of Superman, as originally created, was to be the ally of those who had no other allies. It put that magnitude of power, the most powerful guy in the world, in the service of those who had no hope, no chance.

~ J. Michael Straczynski

Superman is the next of Bauldy's Super Dudes (link).

This Superman is one that Bauldy shows us where it doesn't use a printed round.  I don't even think there is one, but it's probably one of the more commonly asked for superheroes, so he shows how he would build it.

These balloons are designed to be quick line work, so I tried to spend a little more time on the face and hair.  I made two and attempted to get that little curly strand of hair built from a balloon, but finally gave up and drew it on with the second attempt.

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Other Super Dudes:

All Bauldy's