June 24 - Whale

"There is no folly of the beast of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men."

~ Herman Melville, Moby-Dick

At rehearsal for our high school choir gala event, most people had registered to sing solo - I remember a somewhat quiet girl sang a hauntingly beautiful song about being an ice cream cone and melting into nothingness - she had such vocal presence as she drifted into almost a whisper.

I had wrangled three friends into a barbershop quartet to sing "Old Jonah" (had a whale of a time in a whale!) - sailor jackets, classic barbershop harmonies and a moment where I turned around and wiggled my "tail".  It was a goofy high-school skit and I thought we sounded great.

Then ... ... five boys walked out snapping their fingers, in white shirts and dark glasses.  They launched into a doo-wop medley that could have been at the end of an 80s flick (literally, this was '89). The crowd went Beatles-crazy in response, they put their sunglasses back and walked off snapping their fingers again.  Brilliant.  So cool.

I'm in the audience wearing a grey shirt-costume that says "I Am The Whale".   

One of those clarity moments on just how cool I am.

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This whale (of a time in a whale) - is the latest instructions shared by Isopresso on their YouTube channel. The ventral throad grooves took tying to get them to sit right for me, having them tighter would make it so you wouldn't have to because the fins do much of that work. 
(view other whales)

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Other balloons by and inspired by Isopresso:

March 4 - Whales

"The great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago."

~ Herman Melville

The final line of Moby Dick, and Melville crushes us under the weight of the meaningless of it all.  Oooof - a literary gut punch.

The whale design was originally taught on Dave Brenn's first "Rounds" instructional video, and later revised by Matt Falloon in a webinar on BAC. I'm including the versions and variations I have made between the two of them.

We learn things and go off to our respective corners of the world, a very specific focus group spending 500 hours refining something with a distinct set of styles/limitations/ideas.   

Dave came up with the clever distortion that makes a good whale form and is perfect for linework and what he needed at the time, Matt elevated it by giving the whale more personality with simple body fins and face shape but did so in a way quoting Dave's original work.

Sidewall bubbles in 10 year old rounds helped weed out some of the balloon colors that did not survive... thankfully one of the first steps.     

 

(view other Dave Brenn or Matt Falloon designs)

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Other whale balloons:

May 22 - Whale

“Queequeg explained to me that his world was very different from ours. However, one thing he learned quickly, was that within all groups of people there are kind men and there are unkind men.”

~ Herman Melville, Moby Dick

This design is one that I've admired for a while.  Mr. Sung won a color contest with a giant version of his whale, and there are instructions for the creation of that -- this is a smaller version and probably the one that most excited me to build.

The combination of the two different textures was intriguing -- and now I know the magic.

This was another, like the egg, that is simple enough to construct but exacting in the sizing to try and get the proper shape.

It seemed only too fitting to build it again in Caribbean Blue, the water spout on that one is the one taught (and my favorite).

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Other balloon designs or inspiration from Song Junlin:

April 23 - Li'l Narwahl

“...you never truly win a conservation battle - you just win the right to fight another day. Like an alcoholic, the environment is never saved. It always needs saving.”

~ Joshua Horwitz

Next Jackie Ochitwa shared how she makes her Li'l Narwahl using this base form.

I tried building a couple different horn styles, the single wrapped looks better but feels less stable than the double horn.  I wanted to play around and see if if there were other sea creatures this would fit well with.

This base is very simple and somewhat cartoon-ish, you really need something distinct to define the character.   So something generic like a whale I think would be hard to realize, but something distinct like a beluga whale which would be white.

The walrus turned out great.  Coo-coo ka choo.



(view other whales)

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Other Jackie Ochitwa inspired balloons:

August 21 - Beluga Whale

Baby beluga in the deep blue sea,
Swim so wild and you swim so free.
Heaven above and the sea below, And a little white whale on the go.

~ Raffi Baby Beluga

I have a LOT of balloon twisting channels in my YouTube subscription playlist, but I still search for more.

One I found fairly recently that is chock full of goodness, is "goody balloon" - with Japanese artist Kanesan.

The instructions and information is all in Japanese, but they are visibly clear and easy to follow despite the language barrier. Thankfully so, because I tried auto-translating the auto-generated subtitles on YouTube, it was interesting, but not accurate in the least. "But why microwave still horn" - indeed.

Recently he did a number of the characters from the Finding Dory movie, and one was Baily, the Beluga whale, voiced by Ty Burell (Phil Dunphy from Modern Family). The design is fairly simple but effective, the big bulging head really brings it to life.

Actually we're kriller whales...	Whale whale whale, what have we here?
He can't keep a secret ... he's a blubber mouth.

March 4 - Killer Whale

HelllllllloooooooooooooOoooOOoooo!
"Hi!" (translated from Orca-ish)

"Those who become trainers because they love the animals usually end up leaving for exactly the same reason" ~ Anonymous ex-Sea World employee (Blackfish)

This killer whale is a headband design that Pieter van Engen shared with us in Balloon Magic #82.  The whale is very quickly done, it takes longest making the cool 8 petal flower fountain flair.  You can see how it can be used for other things (a spout of fire?) in the purple pig version.

Now that I look at the images, this could probably use some eyeballs, or at least some artwork.  Oh whale ...

The evolved form of the porka whale can shoot fire from its spout

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Other posts with Pieter's designs:


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