March 17 - St. Patrick Pico

May the Irish hills caress you.
May her lakes and rivers bless you.
May the luck of the Irish enfold you.
May the blessings of Saint Patrick behold you.

~ Irish Blessing

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

It's time for me to start trying to explore the next balloon concept, this time it's going to be Matt Falloon's Picos.

I really love Picos. ... or Me encanta Picos according to google translate. It's a brilliantly obvious concept in hindsight, making things as small as possible, and Matt has some great techniques to help bring out nice shapes. But in the end, it is practice, trial and error, and a bit of compromise that gets it done.

This design is an attempt to copy an image Sam Cremeen's posted recently. #InspiredbySam

One important thing to note about Picos is that since you're dealing with such a small form, size and air pressure are critical components.  I could make 10 and they would probably all be different until I dialed correctly on what I like.  While I'm practicing and don't really know, I end up with a good variance of features.

I made three total - the first one was rather experimental and misshapen, not worth showing here unless as an example of what not to do - I had to put it out of it's misery. The second one has beefy arms that needed to be tied down and I wasn't content with what was going on with his hat.  The third I gave a chubbier body to and perhaps too big of a beard, but I got the arms and hat the way I wanted them to be.

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Other Picos:


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