March 31 - Jerry Garcia

Must be getting early, clocks are running late.
Paint by number morning sky, looks so phony.
Dawn is breaking everywhere,
Light a candle, curse the glare
Draw the curtains I don't care 'cause it's alright
I will get by, I will get by, I will get by, I will survive.

I see you've got your fists out, say your piece and get out.
Guess I get the gist of it but it's alright
Sorry that you feel that way.
The only thing there is to say
Every silver lining's got a touch of grey
I will get by, I will get by, I will get by, I will survive.

~ Grateful Dead   Touch of Grey

This one uses some of the enhancements Patrick Van de Ven shows in his Little Guys balloon concept.  I like using legs, it keeps them less chubby and cartoonish.

I had to build this twice actually, the first one developed a slow leak in the shirt - the sharpie work re-liquified and it got really messy.

One of my earlier hobbies was collecting live recordings (my old trade site is now only visible in the wayback machine).  I probably have hundreds of Grateful Dead recordings, and although I have listened to them "live" so many times I sadly never got a chance to see them perform live.

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Other Little Guys:


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March 30 - Older Fellas

This old man, he plays one
He plays knick knack on my thumb
With a knick knack paddy wack
Give a dog a bone
This old man comes rolling home

These older guys are using Patrick Van de Ven's Little Guy balloon concept.

This one uses some of the enhancements he shows in the PDF. He demonstrates how to make the guy with the red shirt, and I thought I would try to make a couple others.

The first additional guy is in green, and I didn't really have a plan.  I grabbed the balloons I needed that were in my "extra bits" pile. ... and I think if anything that it's evident I need a plan. He looks okay, but he's just a plain guy. I should have put a cowboy hat on him, or a a fishing rod in his hand or something.

It was while building that one that I was imagining how one might make an old geezer. At first I was going to put him in a track suit, but ended up just leaving him in his sweat pants. I realize he looks nothing like the old man from Up, but that's the house that came to mind when I thought "get off my lawn!".

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Other posts with Patrick's designs:


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March 29 - Little Guy Kids

“When my kids become wild and unruly, I use a nice safe playpen. When they’re finished, I climb out.”

~ Erma Bombeck

There have been so many balloon concepts released recently that I feel like the balloon equivalent of a kid in a candy store. Which I suppose is really just a kid in a balloon store. I was going to try and keep myself to two a month, but I can't resist starting on these.

Patrick Van de Ven has released a number of fantastic tutorials on specific creations, but this "Little Guy" is the first concept tutorial he has shared. All of Patrick's PDFs have been top notch, and this is no exception to that rule. He explains very clearly with many images how to implement the basic concept as well as many ways to expand upon it. One of the things I really enjoy about this set of instructions is that he doesn't overdo it as some tutorials do, re-explaining the concept as he makes some minor adjustments. He leaves the work up to you by showing a bunch of his other creations with just a list of the differences he uses when building them.

As with the other balloon concepts I've played with this year, I'm going to start down the runway building a few from his directions before try and take off. His cast of characters are really good, so I might need to exercise some restraint to do that. These two are the basic boy and girl forms from the instructions.

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Other posts with Patrick's designs:


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March 28 - Playful Kitty

“Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.”

~ Robert A. Heinlein

This kitty is an Anastasya Sokol design from her "Figures from balloons for modeling" tutorials (link).  I can't get enough of these tutorials, one of my favorite things to build are detailed or creative decor pieces like these.  I've built a bunch of cats, but never a calico (?) not one as playful as this one, having it on it's back and playing with a ball of yarn was brilliant.

I've only built four (of nineteen total) from this particular set, but I can easily see myself building all of them.  Each is very well stylized.  In this one, Anastasya seemed to be measuring things very carefully against a ruler, but she shows everything quite clearly and I was able to eyeball match the sizes and keep up with her.

I brought this in to work today.

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Other posts with Anastasya's designs:


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March 27 - Kakamora

And the call isn't out there at all
It's inside me
It's like the tide, always falling and rising
I will carry you here in my heart
You'll remind me
That come what may, I know the way
I am Moana!

~ I Am Moana Moana

Kakamora from Moana, these are the little angry coconut creatures that chase Moana and Maui who try to steal the Heart of Te Fiti.

Juan Gonzales came up with this design and offered it free on his YouTube channel (link). I like the way he makes the mohawk, but thought I would try a couple different styles since they are all fairly unique looking.

It is sometimes difficult to hear while someone is twisting balloons in a tutorial. Juan works around this well by turning the main audio down and providing voice over. What is funny is that oftentimes he gets drowned out anyways by my own twisting.   😁

During the tutorial he suggested this might make a good quick Mike Wachowski as well.

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Other posts with Juan's designs:


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March 26 - Lumiere

No one's gloomy or complaining
While the flatware's entertaining.
We tell jokes, I do tricks
With my fellow candlesticks

~ Be Our Guest Beauty and the Beast

This is a balloon I made for the office this week. Since this is not a profession for me, it's great to have places where I can bring balloons. I wish I could say that everything I make finds a good home, but usually every other week I have a giant bag of "first tries" and leftovers I have to pop before throwing out.

The first time I bring balloons somewhere is a usually little bit awkward, because it begs a bit a story more than "I made this for you guys". We rent an office in a shared space, and I have been bringing balloons to work almost every week since I returned from my first balloon convention where Helen encouraged me to get over that awkward.

This week they were having a client appreciation luncheon and announced special thanks and a gift for me, this golden balloon dog.  😁💖

I've seen quite a few pictures of balloon Lumiere, and thought it might be topical to build something from Beauty and the Beast since it released this week.

March 25 - Pico Purple Pig

We would zig-zag our way
Through the boredom and pain
Occasionally glancing up through the rain
Wondering which of the buggers to blame

And watching ... For pigs on the wing

~ Pink Floyd Pigs on the Wing I

Here is the final entry exploring Matt Falloon's Pico concept. The DVD (link) was well worth it, I'm glad I got a chance to play with the idea - Matt has a next level approach to things that is inspiring. I can't wait to see what he comes up with next.

Every balloon concept I explore this year needs it's purple pig entry, so here is Pico Purple. It took a few tries to get something I was satisfied with. First I tried with nostrils in the nose, but that elongated the face too much. I then had a couple attempts similar to the fat faced pig, but I realized he still needed some sort of muzzle. I finally settled on what you see in the upper picture and made a purple version of that. I think the blush ended up the better of the two.

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Other Picos:


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March 24 - Picoteel

When birds burp, it must taste like bugs.

~ Bill Watterson

This is a Matt Falloon pico design from Balloon Magic Magazine #85, where he shows a couple designs from his Picos DVD (link) as well as this new one.  It's definitely more fun to learn these from his DVD, though the instructions are clear in the magazine, they lack Matt's goofy charm.

Picos are currently one of my favorite things to do with the random extra 160s that accumulate outside my organized rolls.  They are the perfect thing to build while you are in the car waiting in a parking lot waiting to pick up your kids from school or some event because you can make due with even a little scrap.

It's unfortunate that 160's don't keep inflated as well as the larger sized balloons, that's the one bummer - they typically do not last much more than a day or so without something getting weird or soft.

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Other Picos:


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March 23 - Little Lion

Hela hey mamela, hela hey mamela
Hela hey mamela, hela hey mamela

He lives in you, he lives in me
He watches over everything we see
Into the waters, into the truth
In your reflection, he lives in you

~ Lion King He Lives In You

This lion is one of the last couple of Matt Falloon's Picos I'll be doing. I really do love the challenge of doing them and they're fun to build.  They would be perfect for any sort of quick work situation, and truth told I'm probably spending more of my time playing with image programs than I am building balloons.

I thought a lion's mane would be another good use of the way Matt gets ears to fit and give an interesting shape to the bear. I ended up struggling a bit on the yellow lion to get them to pressure fit, but I think I like them even better on the inside.

The Purple of Life

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Other Picos:


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March 22 - Wittle Walrus

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot--
And whether pigs have wings."

~ Lewis Carroll The Walrus and The Carpenter

I thought a walrus might be a fun thing to attempt with Matt Falloon's Pico concept (link).

It took a few attempts to get it small enough for me to consider it Pico, perhaps it's still Nano or Micro - but it's as small as I can get it without compromising more of the body. I like the smooshy shape of the muzzle in the final (mocha) form.

I do like the dark brown one a lot, and think the form might be well suited for a bigger sculpture.  I gave up the poofy chest and weave to make it smaller -  but I think I might be able to keep the poofy chest with a thin squishy balloon.  Also it might look good with a blush/peach-blush muzzle.

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Other Picos:


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March 21 - Pico Puppies

There is no psychiatrist in the world like a puppy licking your face.

~ Ben Williams

These puppies are based on an image I saw posted by Anthony Lena.

The giraffe I made is similar so I don't mean this in a bad way - though they are technically 'pico', they do lack that bit of pico-jazz soft-bubble stuff that many of Matt's designs have.  They are a micro-sized normal dog.

I haven't yet really gotten "off the page" as it were for using the Pico designs, I hope I am able to before I finish off this balloon concept!

Pico-lifford was an interesting idea, but I'm not sure it's obvious without a giant Emily Elizabeth sock next to it.

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Other Picos:


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March 20 - Pico Giraffe

All you do is to look
At a page in this book
Because that's where we always will be.
No book ever ends
When it's full of your friends
The Giraffe and the Pelly and me.

~ Roald Dahl The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me

April the Giraffe still hasn't had her baby at the time of this blog post (link to live-cam), and I thought it would be interesting to try and make something notoriously so big - so small.

Things came together quite easily, a testament to how well Matt Falloon's Pico designs work (link).  I first made the orange and then the yellow to try and get the shape of his head a bit better.  I didn't change much from that (though I did try to make one even smaller...)

It occurs to me that I don't have anything to give perspective on how big this is.  To give myself some sanity while posing them for pictures, so it wouldn't fall over - I tucked a penny between the back legs -- I would say it's about 5 pennies high and 1.5 pennies wide.

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Other Picos:


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March 19 - Cannonball Flyer

When he got loaded, the human cannonball knew there were not many men of his caliber.

~ George Carlin

This Pico is actually from early last year when Matt Falloon participated in the Frequent Flyers project.

Frequent Flyers is a balloon DVD concept, championed by the indominatable Phileas Flash, designed to benefit WarChild.org.uk, an organization that provides support to children who's families and community have been torn apart by war. Matt's offering was a cannon that shot these little flyer guys.

There is a link on the right to all of my entries into the contest that they had to support the project.

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Other Picos:


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