March 14 - Tractor

I bought an ant farm. I don't know where I am going to get a tractor that small.

~ Steven Wright

Rainer Fürstenfeld is one of those rare gems you stumble across when you devour the internet for balloon resources. He is a German balloon artist and an on-and-off active YouTube poster for a couple years, but never with a great deal of advertising that I've seen.

This tractor is one of his designs (link). Rainer does a great job showing with his fingers the proper sizes to make things but once again it warrants a quick watch through before you start, because things are done with efficiency and you might miss something. For example, he shows how to build one wheel, then shows how to attach the wheels. I speak from experience, I started to build this last week as a request from one of the folks at my office, but ended up with a good portion of it upside down before I realized my mistake.

March 13 - Girl Clown

After all the jacks are in their boxes
And the clowns have all gone to bed
You can hear happiness staggering on down the street footsteps dressed in red

And the wind whispers Mary

~ Jimi Hendrix The Wind Cries Mary

Anastasya Sokol teaches this girl clown on her DVD "Figures from balloons for modeling" (link).

It's always best to watch a tutorial in its entirety and then attempt to build anything - and probably doubly so for these due to the level of detail and the language barrier.  But Anastasya is a wonderful instructor, despite not understanding a word she says - she's able to communicate clearly with her actions what she does, and does so with efficiency.  She will build one arm and then attach both, or fast-playing through sections that have already been discussed.  You can see that a great deal of care has been put into these designs.

I have never weighted anything down the way she does with these - but I really like it a lot, in addition to the weight, it provides a nice bit of suction on a flat surface.  It's nice to be able to pose this without having to worry about it toppling over.

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March 12 - Sunflower

They're creepy and they're kooky,
Mysterious and spooky,
They're altogether ooky,
The Addams Family.

Their house is a museum
When people come to see 'em
They really are a scream
The Addams Family.

~ The Addams Family Theme

Last night we went to a production of The Addams Family at my older son's school. He was an usher and one of his good friends was in the cast, so he insisted that I make some balloon flowers for her. ... okay, okay. I offered and he said "sure", which for him is about as animated of an affirmative response as I can expect.

The play was fantastic, Gomez was incurably romantic, Fester was horribly wonderful, Morticia was wonderfully horrible, the sets, the songs - it was ... to die for. Muahahahhahahaaaaaa!

The sunflowers in the bouquet is a Sergey Loginov design from last year (link).  Sergey is great resources when you're looking for intermediate level balloons. He has been making balloon videos for quite some time that he has a substantial library - as an example, this is just one of three (maybe more?) designs he has shared for sunflowers alone.

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March 11 - Anastasya's Clown

Be a clown, be a clown,
All the world loves a clown.
Act the fool, play the calf,
And you'll always have the last laugh.

~ Cole Porter Be a Clown

Here is another tutorial from Anastasya Sokol.

Her tutorials are fantastic, but you have to pay strict attention if you don't speak the language. Details that she explains I have to glean from what her hands are doing, and sometimes it's a struggle when you're a few steps along and realize you might have made something too tight/loose/over inflated or something.

This one (as most of her designs) has great hair, but it's set in there in such a way with the hat and the eyes that wasn't apparent to me until I tried to put it all together. I undid some steps, but it probably would have been much better if I started over again.

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March 10 - Beautiful Girl

You're beautiful
You're beautiful
You're beautiful, it's true
I saw your face in a crowded place
And I don't know what to do
'Cause I'll never be with you

~ James Blunt You're Beautiful

This is from another one of Anastasya Sokol's tutorial compilations, this one of seventeen new and interesting hair styles for both male and female faces. Even though this would technically classify as a balloon concept, each of these designs are fantastic and distinct, and with seventeen to build I will just be interspersing them throughout this year. Besides, no one needs to see a purple pig with beautiful flowing locks of hair ... or do they?

One thing that Anastasya provides with these tutorials are some printable eyes to cut out and apply rather than drawing them. I haven't been able to print them yet, I need to replace an ink cartridge in my printer, so I did my best to try and paint them. That's why I took a couple "before" pictures, I get nervous I'm going to mess up the work I had done.

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March 9 - Rolly Pollie Pigs

Always remember, a cat looks down on man, a dog looks up to man, but a pig will look man right in the eye and see his equal.

~ Winston Churchill

Alas, we have reached the end of the smorgasbord that was Rolly Pollies (for now). Dan Staples has a fantastic concept, great for line work and probably the best thing ever to practice your artwork on. Yes, you do need to have the Big Bear Heads - but it's worth it in my humble opinion. They are an unusual shape and entertaining, and you get a nice big fat body to work with.

I still want to explore long neck creatures and hunchback humans, so perhaps I might revisit these in the future, but I've already overrun my week - so that means it's time for the purple pig attempt. There was a pig design shared in the first downloadable, in Rolly Pollies 2, Lindsey showed how to "Pookify" this face to cute.

I used her eyes, but I wanted to play around with adding a raisin to the front lobe. It worked out pretty easily, I always had plenty of room.

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March 8 - Rolly Pollie Extras

However much you know giraffes, to see one in the wild for the first time feels prehistoric.

~ Jane Goodall

Just a couple more to explore with Dan Staples Rolly Pollie balloon concept.

It's very easy to use the regular balloons from my pile of extras - but difficult to remember/use the random shapes/prints, so it was great to pull aside all these remaining Big Bear Heads to try and make "something" with. The process was simply - grab color and decide what to make.

Blue was probably the toughest color. Having already built an elephant, I thought I might try for a whale by turning it on it's side and making fins - but imagined it would look very similar to the quad bod fishes I had already done. A hippo would have worked, but been mostly artwork ... In the end I'm glad I went with the bulky man body, I think it might be fun to spend some time coming up with good variations on that.

After bringing in some Pollies to the office earlier this week, someone suggested a giraffe in honor of April the Giraffe (link). Challenge accepted. Once again I think it might be neat to spend some time on building "neck" variations.

The Chicago Bull and the little devil are more in line with the classic form.

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