April 30 - Mordecai

Mordecai: I dont need to brag, I dont mean to boast, but here's some hummus for these mini toasts!
Rigby: HUMMUS!
Mordecai: HUMMUUS!
Both: HUUUMMUUUS!!!
Benson: Why are you guys yelling "hummus"?

The Regular Show Party Pete episode

Cartoons evolved from when I was younger, much the same way as the Rolling Stones weren't permitted to sing "let's spend the night together" compared to modern lyrics, now cartoons are able to explore crazy plotlines.

The Regular Show is one of the great cartoons on the Cartoon Network.  Mordecai the blue jay and Rigby the raccoon are the two protagonists and lazy park employees who get into a heap of trouble every episode, oftentimes potentially destroying the universe.

Whereas Adventure Time plots might start off weird (rescue the gumdrop princess from the swamp of the tar witch), Regular Show typically starts in a fairly mundane way and goes off the rails from there.  I saw one recently (an older one) where Mordecai accidently sees Pops naked and spends the whole time trying to erase it from his memory, but the one that really stands out as bizarre is when Rigby gets another job at a snack shop where he eats so much his spine decides to abandon his body and he's left as an amorphous blob.

This Mordecai uses Eric Weinstein's sweet cheeks concept.  I tried two versions - but thought the first was a little chubby for his form.  It was the more poseable of the two though and probably works best, but I wanted something skinnier.

We are at the end of the month, I do love these sweet cheeks - but I am going to force myself to try and move on to the 9th and 10th balloon concepts in May.

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Other Sweet Cheeks designs:


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April 29 - Ostrich

Urus! Urus ni buzra! Arrâs talbabi fillumâ! Ugrûd tashniki kurdumâ! Lu! Lu! Lu! Urkhas tanakhi!

Fire!! Fire in the deep! Flames lick our skin! Fear rips our heart! No! No! No! The demon comes!

~ The Fellowship of the Ring The Balrog

One of my other great passions in life is singing choral music, and the North Carolina Master Chorale is one of the best that I've been lucky enough to participate in. We typically sing Requiems and other great works, but last year we sang the score the the Fellowship of the Ring while the movie played, chanting "Ur-HAS Ta-na-KI!" as the heroes ran through Moria, trumpeting the ringwraiths as they chase wounded Frodo being carried by Arwen, providing the haunting backdrop to the elves as they lament the loss of Gandalf. So ... epic ...

Anyways, one of my fellowship and someone I frequently perform standing next to is photographer and conceptual artist Michael J Bambuch (website).  He has numerous projects and art series, one of which involves photographing people lit with car headlights while pursuing their passions - and upon seeing my enthusiasm for some recent Purple Pig posts, he invited me to participate.

All of the photographs are credited to Michael J. Bambuch, originals can be found on his website (direct link to car portrait project).

The ostrich is part of the Sweet Cheeks line by Eric Weinstein.

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Other Sweet Cheeks designs:


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April 28 - Peacock

Guinnevere had green eyes
Like yours, mi'lady like yours
When she'd walk down
Through the garden
In the morning after it rained
Peacocks wandered aimlessly
underneath an orange tree
Why can't she see me?

Crosby, Stills & Nash - Guinnevere

This peacock uses the Eric Weinstein sweet cheeks method. The tutorials include a turkey, but I thought that would be a great candidate for a ... certain other day, so I decided to make this instead (though I didn't actually watch the turkey tutorial).

A peacock is actually one of three distinctions made in the Peafowl family. Peacocks are male, Peahens are female and the young are often referred to as Peachicks. As with most birds, the male peacock has more colorful plumage to display as it tries to attract a mate or fight off a rival.

I first made the smaller bill peacock, but I gave it away quickly and didn't get many pictures.  So I built a new one with a bigger beak and added the color spots to the tail.

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Other Sweet Cheeks designs:


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April 27 - Sneetches

But McBean was quite wrong. I'm quite happy to say
The Sneetches got really quite smart on that day,
The day they decided that Sneetches are Sneetches
And no kind of Sneetch is the best on the beaches.
That day, all the Sneetches forgot about stars
And whether they had one, or not, upon thars.

~ Dr. Seuss The Sneetches

These Sneetches were made with Eric Weinstein's Sweet Cheeks method.

I made a few attempts at the head before settling on what is here, I almost gave up but had to remind myself that a balloon concept is never going to be a perfect representation of a design, and is really a vehicle to get you past that initial road block to creation - a simple version of something that requires you to reduce a design to a minimal state and build up from there. What is a Sneetch? A humanoid-ish chubby bodied bird, with a whisp of hair and perhaps a star on it's tummy.

Dr. Seuss designs are a fun thing to experiment with, they are very stylized and a great candidate for distortions. My first attempt with the longer torso did just that. I simplified things with the second and made a chubby body similar to the 'Little Guy' concept.

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Other Sweet Cheeks designs:


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April 26 - Sweet Cheeks Pig

Th-Th-The, Th-Th-The, Th-Th... That's all, folks!

~ Porky Pig

As I've done with the other balloon concepts, here is a pig using Eric Weinstein's Sweet Cheeks method.

I actually made one of these in the montage of purple pigs back at Bling Bling Jam last year, but that was while Eric was still working on #2 and before I had much practice with using the technique, so it's a bit rough (link).

I first made the one holding the flower, but he needed a mouth and some work on the nose, so I made the one holding the dog - but left him to sit for a couple days before taking a picture, which is why he's a little wilty (you can see it in the eyes).

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Other Sweet Cheeks designs:


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April 25 - Sweet Big Cats

Lady Samantha glides like a tiger
Over the hills with no one beside her
No one comes near
They all live in fear
But lady Samantha, she sheds only tears

Three Dog Night - Lady Samatha

Here are a couple big cats made with Eric Weinstein's Sweet Cheeks technique.

I don't really have a lot more to add to that, the technique is very simple and gives a great foundation for a face and body. Eric's original PDFs were the start of the sweet cheeks concept and I feel that it could work for a cartoon version of almost anything.

I used the random animal generator again, but I'm not sure that is the best way to select an animal because some of them are very specific and not so cartoon-ish - an Ibex, a Highland Cow, an impala, a dingo. Thankfully it also suggested a tiger, and even though I've built tigers using other techniques I felt it would be another good exercise for the sweet cheeks. I then used the same technique for the cheetah.

I'm actually not sure how many more Sweet Cheeks I will build because it's hard to remember exactly what I've created using the technique already ...

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Other Sweet Cheeks designs:


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April 24 - Conrad Frappuccino

Agnes: Oh, my gosh look at that fluffy unicorn! ... He's so fluffy, I'm gonna die!

~ Despicable Me (2010)

Being that choir season has ended, I'm no longer frequenting the Starbucks along that path. They are always so enthusiastic about receiving balloon art that I wanted to make something nice and big as a "farewell for the summer". Though I've previously made a version on Conrad last year (link), I thought timing was perfect for a making him again.

The day of Unicorn Frappuccino's has passed, I think the world might be better off without it.  (Though I never tried one - the very idea terrified me.)

Carolynn Hayman has become quite a media superstar making this unicorn - this was originally created for Twist & Shout 2016 but Conrad (and Carolynn) has been all over for events and even a daytime news show.

In my attempt, the body came together very easily and the head was equally easy to make - it was marrying the two that was the more difficult part, getting a good arc and keeping a "horse head shape". Thankfully there is a rainbow unicorn mane to distract from that!

April 23 - Loch Ness

This legend lives through centuries
Evoking history's memories
Prevailing in eternities
On and on and on

Loch Ness confess
Your terror of the deep
Loch Ness distress
Malingers what you keep
Loch Ness protects monstrosity
Loch Ness confess to me

~ Judas Priest Lochness

Today was the final performance of the season for my choir (Beethoven's 9th) and between that and kid activities and yard work, I didn't have a lot of time for art. I am not done with my Sweet Cheeks, but I saw this image posted again recently in Eric Weinstein's special group and thought it would be a quick build.

John Justice posted this and I believe it his take on the snail and/or worm that Eric shared. It reminded me of that classic Loch Ness picture, so I tried using that in my image.

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Other designs by John:


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April 22 - Skunk

Bambi: Flower!
Flower: Me?
Thumper: No, no, no, no! That's not a flower! He's a little...
Flower: Oh, that's all right. He can call me a flower if he wants to.  I don't mind.
Bambi: Purty. Purty *flower*!
Flower: Oh...Gosh.

 ~ Bambi (1942)

There are so many fantastic designs in Eric Weinstein's Sweet Cheeks #3 (link) - that I'm having a hard time getting off the page with them and creating something using the technique instead of just using his tutorials. I tried today though, I used a random animal generator to come up with something I hadn't built before, or at least in a while and ended up with a skunk.

My first attempt was with the brown nose.  It's got all the signs of a first attempt, the hair tuft is distracting, and the ears are too fox-like.  I was able to improve on it with the second build (pink nose), but there are still things that I would change if I had time to build it again.  The tail should be big and bushy and prominent like a squirrel's tail and the nose needs to be resting up higher..

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Other Sweet Cheeks designs:


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April 21 - Ursula (Sweet Chicks #2)

There you see her
Sitting there across the way
She don't got a lot to say
But there's something about her

And you don't know why
But you're dying to try
You wanna kiss girl

~ The Little Mermaid Kiss the Girl

I've previously made something similar to this when reverse engineering something John Justice had posted in the past, but Ursula is his glorious contribution the Sweet Cheeks #3 (link).

John certainly pushes the bounds of balloon art. His creations are oftentimes the cleanest looking, artistic, cartoonishly awesome balloons you are lucky to find. In addition to the actual balloon art, he does a fantastic job in demonstrating the sharpie work - and Ursula's face is really fantastic.

I tried making a couple other ladies using the same technique, but obviously the malicious face wouldn't work for those!

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Other Sweet Cheeks designs:


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April 20 - Sweet Cheeks Fish

Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.

~ Henry David Thoreau

I'm following another recipe from Eric Weinstein's Sweet Cheeks #3 - here is the fish.

This is one of the more difficult balloon animals to get a good picture of. The eyes on something cartoonish like this typically point forward, but the head does not rotate. So you either have a picture of just the face, or a sideways picture of it staring off camera.

Like with the previous post, Eric again demonstrates how to make a specific fish - Flounder. A base from which you could build a plethora of fish in similar fashion. I had spare blue and green hearts in my extras pile, so first I thought it might be fun to build one of those toothy fish from Finding Nemo with the light bait - hold on, looking up the name -- a Black Sea Devil. Well, I guess this then is a Green Sea Devil. Then with the blue I tried bulking up the form a little and giving it a spout to make a baby whale.

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Other Sweet Cheeks designs:


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April 19 - Sweet Cheeks Fox

Big Mama: Tod, that Copper is going to come back a hunting dog, a real killer.
Young Tod: Oh no, not my friend Copper. He won't ever change.
Big Mama: I hope you're right.
Young Tod: And we'll keep on being friends forever. Right, Big Mama?
Big Mama: Darling, forever is a long, long time, and time has a way of changing things.

~ The Fox and the Hound (1981)

This fox is another of the balloon tutorials from Eric Weinstein's Sweet Cheeks #3 (link).

Eric is throwing in the kitchen sink with these tutorials, in addition to the collection of designs - each of these videos seem to have a specific lesson attached. With this he demonstrates one way in which you might build a seated animal using his technique. This could be used with almost all of the previous creatures.

What I really like about this design in particular is that instead of teaching a typical fox, he shows how to build Foxy from Five Nights at Freddy's, I simplified the colors in order to make a typical fox. I ended up building two versions of Foxy, in the second I played around with some of the earlier SC techniques for a bulkier head but opted to not give it any eyebrows.

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Other Sweet Cheeks designs:


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April 18 - Sweet Cheeks Hermit Crab

I'd rather be shiny
Like a treasure from a sunken pirate wreck
Scrub the deck and make it look shiny
I will sparkle like a wealthy woman's neck
Just a sec, don't you know?
Fish are dumb, dumb, dumb
They chase anything that glitters, beginners
Here they come, come, come
To the brightest thing that glitters
My dinners

~ Moana Shiny

Here is the next offering from Eric Weinstein's Sweet Cheeks #3 (link) - the hermit crab.

Eric mentions in the video that this is one of the two designs that started the whole ball rolling on making cheek tutorials. I can see why he saved it for these, as the first two videos were geared a little more towards quick line work and these make for nicer sculptures.

My initial thought was to make Tamatoa (the crab from Moana - so shiney!) but when I took a look at some of the pictures, it has a substantially different shape - with eyes on stalks and a big jagged toothed mouth. So I made a lady friend for the shown design.

It isn't different from the main design with the exception of the colors and the flower addition to the shell, which actually gives it a little bit of a bonnet. But there is something painful to look at in the lady design for me, the big delicious heart balloons that I use are from Qualatex, but most of my kit balloons are Betallic, the pinks clash! - ow! my eyes!

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Other Sweet Cheeks designs:


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