July 1 - Stitch

"Ohana means family. Family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten."

~ Lilo & Stitch

They tell me everyone loves Stitch. 

It (he?) came into public favor in that sweet spot between childhood and parenthood for me and perhaps I just never built up a tolerance for this guy.

I caught part of an episode once - some alien mischief, constant maintenance, some kind of sugar-fueled exhausting storyline.  So now with the new movie coming out, there have been a number of Stitch designs people have shared in anticipation of requests. 

I had managed to avoid all of these until the recent Bling Bling Jam webinar, where Justin Reams dazzled us with his awesome new pump design then, WHAM! taught this quick Stitch design before we could look away. 

Ohana also means resistance is futile.   

---

Other balloons by and inspired by Justin Reams:

June 30 - Jojo Parrot

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be."

~ Douglas Adams

Rose up this morning, smiled at the purple one,
Three little birds, with drunken hiccups,
There were parrots, there was one red - one blue, 

And one white cockatoo-oo-ooo.

Singing, "Where's wormy?  Roundish thing?

We're not the early birds, but we've been up all night!"

Singing, "Hey wormy!  'Ring-a-ling!'.

I think that was your clock, and I see sunlight!"

---

I have no idea what I'm doing anymore.

Something to do with parrots drunkenly hitting on the early worm I think.  That's a thing, right?  

Made in Tobi Twist's Jojo style!


(view other birds or jojos)

---

Other balloons by and inspired by Tobi Twist:

June 29 - Kalisan Blush

O blush not so! O blush not so!
Or I shall think you knowing;

~ John Keats Sharing the Apple (excerpt)

I have a high opinion of what a blush balloon should be, perhaps I was just spoiled by what we had.  Being "flesh tone" requires a bit of smooshiness to play with, if I can use that as a metric.  If just just based on what it has to go through trying to match the bizarre bends and distortions of limbs and features..  

Kalisan blush ... the color is good (comparisons on blog), but the texture is off - there is a plastic feel to them, and though they seem to have a decent firmness and don't feel thin, there were more than the typical number of random deflations and a bunch of spontaneous explosions during the course.

Every face I made had some sort of substantial blow-out, and early enough that I tossed it aside instead of fixing - the last attempt I was "defusing a bomb" careful.   No face images while testing a blush balloon, if that's not a sign ...

Overall assessment, Kalisan blush ... gonna be a pass for me, between the texture and the random failures, the formula just isn't (currently) right.  

---

Other "color day" balloons:

June 28 - Jojo Penguin

"Change is inevitable;
Growth is optional."

~ John C. Maxwell

"Another penguin?"

... if I were a polar bear, I would say "yes please!"

... if I were a conservationist or research biologist with a grant to burn, I would shout "Hooray!"

... if I were a documentary narrator with a velvet british accent, I would shout "my word!"

... if I were a snowball with sentience, pondering upon life and existence during the dark winter storms, I would project *delighted apprehension!* with a flurry of flakes.

... alas I am but a balloon artist. Penguins are my inevitability.

---

This is one of the starter designs from Tobi Twist's Jojo Cuties collection.  Like every modern rock album needs a ballad, every balloon design needs a penguin.   Rock on little bro.

[Truth told - I actually do enjoy building a new version of -any- animal.  This blog makes it easy and really fun at this point to look back and see the others that were built over time, and significant or subtle differences between them (links on website only unfortunately).   This is the 13th "penguin" post by my count.   Lucky!]

(view other penguin or jojos)

---

Other balloons by and inspired by Tobi Twist:

June 27 - Rhino

"Stopping rhino poaching doesn't just mean stopping poachers, it also means stopping the illegal markets for rhino horn that drive this horrible trade. Challenging these markets, as with all our work, needs a team effort."

~ Jon Taylor, Managing Director, Save the Rhino International

One rhino is killed roughly every day.

Not for food. Not for defense. For a myth.

There are fewer rhinos now than ever before.

Learn what's being done, and what still needs doing, at savetherhino.org.

--

This balloon design is one of the recent member videos from the Isopresso channel, fun one!  I made him just a breath or two on the side of too chubby.
 
(view other rhinos)

---

Other balloons by and inspired by Isopresso:

June 26 - Jojo Chicken

"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be."

~ Kurt Vonnegut - Mother Night

We lost a lot of good birds that year.

I don't think the cows were evil - just confused.  Corporate mercenaries given their own raw deal.   We could have stopped it, if only we had read the signs correctly.

"Eat Mor Chikin."

We thought it was a joke.

How would the humans fall for something so ridiculous?  

We laughed at the grammar.  

We laughed ...

... We lost a lot of good birds that year.

----

This is another of the Tobi Twist "Jojo style" introductory critters, and it got me thinking about the Chick-fil-A cows in their ad campaign.  What a horrible misdirect, when the message could have simply been "eat less cow?"  

(view other chicken) or jojos)

---

Other balloons by and inspired by Tobi Twist:

June 25 - Jojo Frog

Hey, everyone, it's time for JoJo's Circus!
(JoJo, JoJo's Circus!)
Get on your feet, we're gonna have some some fun!

~ Opening Theme to Jojo's Circus

I was looking through some older videos and noticed a few I hadn't explored yet.  ... I mean saved for this exact moment.

"Jojo Cuties" is a balloon concept introduced by Tobias Stengel (@tobi_twist) a few years back.  It built around a simple base jojo (yoyo) structure, compact and clever - and ideal for things that might perch on a bracelet or headband.  

This little bug muncher was the introductory design, a frog is another one of those universal designs and a perfect warm up to practice the techniques.

Let's see where this one goes!

(view other frogs or jojos)

---

Other balloons by and inspired by Tobi Twist: