January 31 - Twirl

When in doubt, Twirl.

~ Ted Shawn

I have brought in a few balloons for people at my son's dance studio.  Late last week they were having a photo shoot to showcase their new winter session toddler dance class (ages 3-5 -- is that toddler still?),  It's called "Twirl", so they asked me a couple days before if I could come up with some sort of balloon letters.  No real color/style/other directions.

I tried a number of styles, gigantic letters with outlines, making a woven background and rubber cementing 160 cursive letters, nothing was really exciting me ... I ended up taking a step back and just making twirled balloons, which in hindsight was the approach I should have started with, after all it is in the class name!

I dropped off a bag with the letters and a bunch of flower bracelets a my son's rehearsal the night before, not really feeling great about the design - so I was pleasantly surprised when I received a glowing email thanking me and these images!

... and a one, and a two, three, four, five, six ... seven ... okay, where's Jenny?

January 30 - Quad Sloth

They call me the sloth
Way down in the ghetto
Italian Spaghetti
Singing falsetto
Sleeping all day
Rip Van Winklin'
Spend my nights in bars
Glasses tinklin'

~ Phish The Sloth

Recently in the balloon forums someone asked to see versions of a sloth, and a nice variety have been posted - from realistic versions to Sid, the sloth from Ice Age. On the heels of making the koala, I figured I would try my hand at a sloth using Jeffrey Hayes quad bod technique.

One of the biggest complications with using this form is that it is not a very pose-able design, the body looks cute with squat against the head, but the head faces rigidly forward - come to think of it, it might be nice to try a two-duo quad bod to separate the two, hmmmmm.  I wanted to get a sloth in motion so I tried adding some simple legs. I'm not sure I like the result so I then made a "classic" version.

A balloon concept forces you to think in the simplest of terms when attempting an animal:
* What is a giraffe? Yellowish, long neck, brown spots.
* What is an elephant? Grey, trunk, enormous ears, tusks.
* What is a koala? Grey and white, big ears, prominent nose.
* What is a sloth? ... I went with "brown, prominent nose and eyes that stripe down the side of the face, three toes"

January 29 - Quad Koala

When my youngest son was taking me to the movie Moana, the projector broke - so we were forced to go to the movie Sing instead.  As I reluctantly entered the theater, I asked if he would rather see Rogue One again which was starting about the same time ...  I'm glad he didn't go for it, because I rather enjoyed the movie.

I wouldn't go so far as to say it's fantastic, but I did find myself emotionally involved in many of the sub stories that were part of it.  As a father, I'm a bit of a sucker for "looking for his parent approval" stories, and both the Koala and Gorilla did a great job at tugging my heartstrings.

I took inspiration for this Quad Koala from balloon artist and face painter - Maria Behrendt, who I noticed has a Facebook profile koala that uses a quad body type form.  Thanks Maria!

I first tried keeping it simple with no arms (green base), but when I built one with larger ears I couldn't resist adding hands and a bit of eucalyptus.  I think it rounds out the belly nicely.

January 28 - Quad Penguin

Surf's Up is a animated mockumentary movie from 2007 about surfing penguins.  I saw it in the theater with my boys during the days when we would see just about anything animated.  I'm not ashamed to admit that I kind of enjoyed it - it was predictable, it was everything you thought it would be, it had an unlikable main character, but there were some pretty funny parts.  Chicken Joe is definitely a highlight.

This quad bod was another one that Jeffrey Hayes showed us in his webinar.

These simple concepts are fantastic, but it's evident to me that I didn't take very good notes in class. I didn't have a reference picture and once I started working out how I was going to stage the Purple shot, I noticed I should have made the bellies white so I had to build another.

I remember hearing in a Brian Potvin lecture at Bling Bling Jam how he builds everything three times before he calls it complete. I think this blog stands as evidence for the benefit in that. In the simplest form; a first build is an exploration, the second is a refinement and then the third is polish.

---

Other posts with Mr. Hayes' designs:


Show all

January 27 - Quad Chicken

Love me some schmoyoho - accent on the yo. Chicken attaAAAaAAaaa-aack. If you're not familiar with the channel, it's a fun one to get lost in.

This quad bod chicken was posted online by Jeffrey Hayes after his webinar where he introduced the concept.  So simple yet so effective, I've kept it in my inspiration folder anticipating using it at some point - I like how he makes the feet out of part of the flower base.

It was pointed out in a comment last night that these are very similar to Chibicoro, and I absolutely agree.  There are some significant differences though in my opinion, enough to be considered by me at least as a separate balloon concept (by me at least) - I do plan on reviewing the chibi concept in the future (Chibi link for reference sake).

... I don't think the question really was can we do this ...

---

Other posts with Mr. Hayes' designs:


Show all

January 26 - Little Green Men

Buzz: This is an intergalactic emergency. I need to commandeer your vessel to Sector 12. Who's in charge here?
All Aliens: [pointing up] The clawwwwwwwww!
Alien #1: The claw is our master.
Alien #2: The claw chooses who will go and who will stay.

~ Toy Story

The LGM are a fun first representative from the next concept I will be exploring here. A little over a year ago, Jeffrey Hayes hosted a webinar where he showed us his design concept - Quad Bods. This was one of the designs he used as an example in that lesson.

I am a huge fan of Jeff's work, he has fantastic forward thinking ideas.  There are a few exercises I perform when working with balloons; if it's a design - I first try to build it as written, but then I ask myself a series of questions as I try to improve upon it.  One of the first of these questions is "What would Jeff do?"

Following the bouncy ball, I first built the purple one above, but when looked up some images to reference when drawing his eyes, I realized I got the colors wrong.  My second attempt had fatter ears, which wasn't quite right but I realize I should have turned them sideways for the picture.

---

Other posts with Mr. Hayes' designs:


Show all

January 25 - Finn the Human

“No one flicks me in the butt without my consent!”

~ Finn Adventure Time

After posting the image of Jake yesterday, it was only appropriate to try for Finn today. This design started off with a bit of what John Justice showed me a while back for a wrist wearable Finn.

There ended up being a good amount of work to catch up on and then choir practice last night so I didn't get too much time to spend on this. I only made one and I tried to copy the pose of the Finn in the same image, which was a struggle because this character in particular is fairly misshapen. Once again had to cheat to get the perspective to look correct -- the right arm is super long whereas the left is about half the size.

I also thought it might be nice for purple to explore being something other than Lumpy Space Princess ...

---

Other posts with John's designs:


Show all

January 24 - Jake the Dog

Dude, suckin' at something is the first step to being sorta good at somethin'.

~ Jake Adventure Time

Adventure Time is one of the more awesome in the new breed of cartoons, always hilarious and at times poignant.  When I saw Sergey Loginov posted his version of Jake on his YouTube channel this morning (link), I knew I had to give it a go.

This was a little bit of a struggle to follow even with the captions, I would advise watching it completely first before twisting along, he does a few things that struck me as odd but then later had purpose. I thought I was pretty off target until I attached the muzzle and it locked everything in place.

... and it made me chuckle to imagine Purple as Lumpy Space Princess.

---

Other posts with Sergey's designs:


Show all

January 23 - Sam's Plane

Man must rise above the Earth — to the top of the atmosphere and beyond — for only thus will he fully understand the world in which he lives.

~ Socrates

Today is the day I'm heading back home after visiting with my mom for an early birthday celebration - so it's appropriate to schedule a plane for this day.

This design was one Sam Cremeens posted in the balloon forums fairly recently. I've tried to recreate it based on those images, once again in haste as I'm about to leave for my weekend trip in only a couple hours! Sam is great at creating functional designs, they are not so complex and thereby things you will build over and over again.

One of the things I really like about Sam's version was the artwork he used for the windows - I don't think I captured it very well, but my actual plane is leaving in just a couple hours and I need to go.

---

Other posts with Sam's designs:


Show all

January 22 - Chicks

Camilla, you're sweeter than wine or vanilla, Camilla.
Come lie beneath this tree, it's a willa, Camilla.
Camilla, the night it grows stilla and stilla, Camilla.
You're prettier by far than Godzilla, Camilla.

~ Camilla Gonzo

I have spent a while exploring Truscheit-style, and would happily explore another hundred designs with it - but it's probably time to move on. Not so much auf wiedersehen (goodbye), as bis später (until later).

These two were made a bit in haste as I was preparing to leave on a plane to visit my mom, and there are things that should be cleaned up in both of them that I just didn't have time for. This is a balloon concept, but this is one that Linda posted and she has an uncanny way to elicit such personality from her designs. Hers is posed laying on it's belly in an "aren't I just adorable?" pose, that I wasn't able to achieve.

Thank you, Linda - your images are so full of attitude, so clean in design - I feel like I will be trying to reach that bar for some time!

---

Other posts with Truscheit-style:


Show all Truscheit-style designs

January 21 - Dragon

“So comes snow after fire, and even dragons have their endings.”

~ J.R.R. Tolkien The Hobbit

This is a copy of one of Linda Truscheit's designs from my inspiration folder from her.

I only made one because I'm in bit of a rush - I'm heading out of town to celebrate my mom's birthday and I need to prepare a few more of these because I don't know that I'll have any time while there.

Posing this guy was a bit rough, if I built him again I would definitely provide a couple offset connection points. So many parts coming out from the same connection points created some chaos. It works well as a flyer, but I would like a little more control to put him in a standing position.

PURPLE: ... If you are holding me with your wings, how are we flying? DRAGON: ... Helium?

---

Other posts with Truscheit-style:


Show all Truscheit-style designs

January 20 - Lion

"Simba, let me tell you something my father told me. Look at the stars. The great kings of the past look down on us from those stars... So whenever you feel alone, just remember that those kings will always be there to guide you. And so will I."

~ Mufasa The Lion King

I've been on this "Truscheit-style" kick for a while, but they are just so cute!

Maybe I'll just do a couple more - I am heading out of town for a few days for an early celebration of my mom's birthday, so I need to make a few to be set to go while I'm away.

This baby lion is one Linda Truscheit created and I have saved in my inspiration folder for her. I think this style is one of the best to create that innocent baby face this lion has. I ended up bringing these two to Starbucks and they were cuddled immediately (as they should be!), it was amusing to see someone try to operate a cash register with a baby lion under each arm.

Balloona-Matata - what a wonderful phrase!

---

Other posts with Truscheit-style:


Show all Truscheit-style designs

January 19 - Mouse

I know a mouse, and he hasn't got a house
I don't know why. I call him Gerald
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse

~ Pink Floyd Bike

Eeeeek! A mouse!

This balloon started as my attempt at Linda Truscheit's chipmunk, but it looked a little bit like a mouse on the first build - so I went with that.

The chipmunk-become-mouse attempt is below and on the right.  I built another to try and embrace mousey-ness in grey, but I started not liking the big fatty body and it was kind of looking like a bit like a cat. I then made a third, the one you see in the upper right here.

It could still use some tweaking, the eyes are a little bit mismatched and he's looking behind you rather than at you, but like where it ended up, almost looks like Jerry.

Ok - I've had a chat with the cat.   He's ready to forgive if you are.

---

Other posts with Truscheit-style:


Show all Truscheit-style designs