January 29 - Birthday Cars

Happy moments.
Happy thoughts.
Happy dreams.
Happy feelings.
Happy birthday.

I know I'm probably having more fun than they are with these, but we strapped my youngest in for our birthday tradition scavenger hunt again.

The theme this year was muscle cars, so he came home to this version of Buster's wacky racer (link) and the first clue to fill his garage with Rainbow Team 6.   I've really fallen in love with those chrome balloons, it creates such a dynamic look - the pictures really don't do it justice.  I was planning on doing something different with the engine, but I had a pinch line I was playing with new chrome and figured I wouldn't let it go to waste.

I think my favorite part of the scavenger hunt is that we tend to send them all over the place, and the balloons really make it slow and awkward and funny.  Especially since with the added bulk from the scavenge.

January 24 - Scrap Man

“Do you ever wonder if--well, if there are people living on the third planet?'
'The third planet is incapable of supporting life,' stated the husband patiently. 'Our scientists have said there's far too much oxygen in their atmosphere.”
~ Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles

I'm clinging on to those remnants of Twist & Shout.

I was going through my bag and had a bunch of left over balloons from the jam packs and classes and whatnot but felt a certain sort of reverence to them - as if they shouldn't just be thrown in with the random bits and baubles.  So I was toying around when these guys arrived.

I really love the look and feel of the chrome balloons.  I can't wait until they are in stock everywhere.  The convention did give us a small sample pack and I was able to get both a blue and mauve bag as well.

January 22 - Jörmungandr - T&S Post-Mortem

There is no way I could encapsulate or summarize all of Twist & Shout, so the general message would be - if you work with balloon art at all, you should attend.  Beyond an individual design or technique you might learn, you are surrounded by amazing and passionate artists, willing to share - welcoming you to a family.   These are people who 'get you' without any need for explanations.

This goes for many disciplines though, every so often we take a trip to visit family in Rhode Island and it coincides with some sort of rescued greyhound festival.  Walking up and down the streets and beaches are people with their rescue greyhounds, wearing greyhound t-shirts and wearing a greyhound fanny pack, willing to talk to you about all things greyhound. 

This Jörmungandr is the second of the two designs I thought I might try to build while attending.

Jörmungandr is the sea serpent in Norse mythology, one of the sons of Loki. It is said that when he lets go of his tail to battle his arch-enemy, Thor - Ragnarok will begin and the and the world will cycle to the next age with two surviving humans and the sons of Odin as new gods. I felt it's a good message as well as it's an example of an ouroboros, from ancient Egyptian iconography to symbolize introspection and "cyclicality".

I was so inspired by the people here that I can't wait for the next cycle to see everyone again next year and show them what's I've done that's new. If you were there I hope I got a chance to meet you, and thank you to everyone who introduced themselves.  Is it too early to start planning next years trip?

There was a wall built in the jam room with connection points for people to attach any designs they consider worth saving. I was pretty thrilled when I was doing something else and heard "whoaaaaa! Look at that one!" in reference to mine. In hindsight I should have made it bigger, the ring was built before finding they were out of large globe prints - and my only other option was a 3' giant round balloon and lots of ink-work.

January 21 - Twisting and Shouting - Day 4

Poppies red and roses filled with summer rain.
To heal the wound and still the pain,
That threatens again and again,
As you drag down every lover's lane.

~ Jethro Tull Songs From the Wood

I just walked in the room after saying goodbye on the last day of Twist & Shout, it's after midnight - so after 3am with the time difference, so I this will probably be brief.

This Poppy troll was taught by Pip Milford Hughes in her session as a last minute replacement for a flower design since there were already a couple similar classes, and because she is awesome.  This design has a nice solid way to attach the neck and I think the hair is particularly fantastic - but I think I would attend all of her classes just to hear her talk (not to mention she brings chocolates).

This is the scene I'm leaving to tip the hotel staff (without the pig).

---

Other balloon designs by Pip:

January 20 - Twisting and Shouting - Day 3

My apartment is infested with koala bears. It's the cutest infestation ever. Way better than cockroaches. When I turn on the light a bunch of koala bears scatter. But I don't want 'em to, you know, I'm like "Hey, hold on, fellas. Let me hold one of you. And feed you a leaf."

~ Mitch Hedberg

Today was the second day of classes at Twist & Shout, followed by the stage competitions and the opening of judging of the small, medium, large and uninflated competitions.  It was awesome to see the talented performers and both Kristal Yee and Matt Falloon killed it as hosts.

Everyone was terrific, but I was especially impressed by each of the Asian entries who had such a polished presence and grace on stage.  They paint a picture, they tell a story - it's pure art, I love it.  Also, Martin Lemire deserves special mention - when he walked out as Christopher Lyle in a bikini and struck a pose directly in front of the judges panel and directly in front of Christopher.  Genius.

The Emoji-guy is one that Lindsey Foster showed in her early morning class, it was great that Betallic sponsored her to teach here, she did a fantastic job and her classes were full of energy and some great-looking, quickly made balloons. I think she taught five designs in each of her classes, all while on the verge of getting sick.

The koala is another one from Takahiro Kai's class, I think it looks terrific - but we didn't finish building it in class to I had to guess on how the arms are put together.

But it was a full day and I had to crash (and come type this) so I decided to wait until the morning to view the competition pieces...

January 19 - Twisting and Shouting - Day 2

You know you twist your little girl\
You know you twist so fine
Come on and twist a little closer, now
And let me know that you're mine

~ The Beatles Twist and Shout

Today has been a very long day as it was the start of main classes at Twist & Shout.

... I realize as I begin to write this (after midnight!) that there are really too many pictures and too many stories to ever be able to talk about it all in a short blog like this.  Instead I'm going to keep to fairly brief and certainly incomplete summations.

Twist & Shout is much bigger than any previous balloon events I've attended.  You have to make the hard choice of which of the three offered classes you want to take, yet I was surprised at how sparse they were.  Being that this was the first day for the main twister competitions, it's completely understandable that people would be secreted away in their rooms putting the finishing touches on masterpieces.  (They did - the dress and costume competitions were both amazing.)

One of the more memorable parts of the day, and certainly worthy of note - is that I have now officially met who I consider to be godfather to this blog, one of the most creative and quick-witted people I know, who I have the pleasure of calling friend but hate myself for still being a fanboy of, Scott Tripp.  ... and he brought gifts!

These melty face guys were something I was playing with in the jam room, inspired by Alex Pardee's artwork.  The Cupid and Easter basket is from my first class this morning with Lindsey and the Platypus was taught by Takahiro Kai.

January 18 - Twisting and Shouting - Day 1

“It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.”

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Today was the start of my first Twist & Shout, one of the biggest balloon twisting conventions in the United States.

Balloon conventions feel at times more like a family reunion than any sort of expo, and that's never more apparent than on the first day. It's great gathering of friends and rare to have a conversation that isn't interrupted by someone else coming by for a quick hug and chat. 

I was able to attend two 4-hour master classes - the first with Sam Cremeens, where he demonstrated and talked about the concepts he uses when designing his motorcycles.  One of Sam's hobbies is building real motorcycles, so he is a wealth of information and was able to show important details and purposeful changes for customization.  ... and Purple finally met his brother..

The second was Takehiro Kai who taught his rose column, which is an interesting modular design.  Modular things like this tend to be more work than concept though, "Here is what you do - now do it 80 times and link them together."  It's the tediousness of decor in twister form.  Don't get me wrong - it looks fantastic, and he showed a few different smaller roses in addition to the one that goes with the column.  Takehiro is a great teacher, I look forward to his other classes.

Then came the Welcome Reception and introduction and official beginning, followed by the start of the competitions. I had to run try to take a nap if I were going to make it to the Pajama Jam later that night, but I also had to stay and watch the Scott Tripp, the consummate performer in the 3-minute competition as he stood there - contemplating his uninflated balloons while the flurry of activity of the other competitors occurs all around him, part Casey-at-the-Bat - pure comedy gold.

... I never got a nap!

January 15 - Chibicoro Monsters

~ Weird Al Yankovic - The Brady Bunch

There are so many things on balloon_syotaro's Instagram feed that I want to build, and would probably keep going - but I'll be out of town this week at my first Twist & Shout, the premiere US balloon convention and distracted by other awesomeness as well I'm sure.

I stumbled across some Chibicoro monsters that Syotaro Tushima built last year and I couldn't resist trying a few.  I used the basic structures that he was going for but just tried to build a good variety rather than copy anything in particular.

Syotaro used a good variety of eyes, but I like the look and it was both a good challenge and practice to get a deep stuffed marriage twist while keeping the overall structure thin.  The effect of a good deep sunken eye is worth it though.  It is difficult to get a consistent look, especially when using smaller outer balloons - but I knew I wanted to build this rainbow assortment after my prototype (blue), so I built a bunch of eyes and then later paired them up with the monsters like I was matching socks.

I built the remainder in rainbow order, so you can see red/orange/yellow got the best matches while green and purple have some wonky looking eyes.

---

Other designs by or inspired by Syotaro Tushima:

Show All | Show All Chibicoro

January 14 - Dog with a Leash

“Dreams are ideas where the collar has been removed and the leash has been thrown away.”
~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

This is from another recent Instagram post I tried to copy from Syotaro Tushima, Balloon Syotaro.

Again it demonstrates how much more a balloon can be with the addition of a simple accessory like a leash in this case. Instead of a dog, you have a dog impatiently waiting for it's owner to go on a walk. There is emotion in the scene, the excitement of the dog and the wagging of the tail even though it's stationary in the picture.

I started with the yellow leash version - and it making the ears shorter I decided to change the color as well. 

---

Other designs by or inspired by Syotaro Tushima:

Show All

January 13 - Butterfly on a Flower

You make different colors by combining those colors that already exist.

~ Herbie Hancock

After so many daily posts (700+?), I am enjoying taking this extra time between them to consider what I really want to talk about and/or build.  But be forewarned that this added time will likely give rise to a number of "you know what/who I think is cool" posts.

So ... You know who I think is cool? Syotaro Tushima, known as Balloon Syotaro.

@balloon_syotaro is an inspired balloon artist I have been following on Instagram for a while and his images are  next level balloon art.  They go beyond being simple balloons and tell a story, you catch a freeze frame of something more.

This example from a post earlier this week is a good example of what I mean.  Individually they are not super-impressive balloons, but when combined they are more than just simply butterfly and flower, they are a scene - no longer are you looking analyzing the form of a butterfly, you're considering that at some point the butterfly landed and will fly away from that flower.  Similar to a choir, where individual voices combine to be more than the sum of the parts.

More than putting things on a hairband or a 6-petal flower - this is a fish set among coral, an insect in a flower, a mouse bursting from a block of cheese, a mother cradling a child, an alien holding holding a Deathray 2000 or a breathing apparatus or a book entitled "How To Serve Man", a holiday scene with all the trimmings.  In the time since I was considering building this one, he has posted both a baby swan (ugly duckling) sitting on the back and touching beaks with it's larger swan parent,  and a dog holding a leash expectantly for a walk.  I love it.

January 9 - Bald Guy

All the same we take our chances
Laughed at by time
Tricked by circumstances
Plus ca change
Plus c'est la meme chose
The more that things change
The more they stay the same

~ Rush - Circumstances

For the few of you who have contacted me concerned about the future of the Daily Purple Pig blog, you can see - plus c'est la meme chose..  I had need to bring something to the office this Monday so I built the next balloon keeping that in mind.

I've never really liked my medium sized humanoid shape and this was a good opportunity to play with those.  First I made a base one in blue who had me thinking of a politician.  I was going for "everyday office worker" on my second build and cleaned up a few things, changing the mouth to a smile.  I minimized the hip joints on the pants and gave him some fatter shoulders for the rolled up cuffs.  I also used a smaller sized outer balloon which made for a rather nice pear shape to the overall head. 

This uses Tatyana DjeTa Lyashko's most recent collection of videos, "Vol. 11 - Heads 2". Tatyana has taken to making video's nowadays instead of PDFs - it's helpful and perhaps necessary to demonstrate some of the distortion techniques she uses. This is the first of the collection and probably the simplest - it uses a non-standard face structure and creates a nice cartoon image with the gigantic nose.

I think this is also a good demonstration of the benefits of doing a test build when creating something like this.  Be self critical - analyze the awkward bits from that first build and build that in consideration.  Here's an example of how I tore down my first build before starting the second:
- awkward arms
- bulbous tie
- gigantic hip pinch twists
- too long of torso, too short of legs
- mouth too round
- eyes too small
- eyebrows should not be flesh color

---

Other designs by or inspired by Tatyana Djeta Lyashko:

Show All Tatyana

January 6 - Anastasya's Boy

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”

~ Søren Kierkegaard

This week I worked through a bit of what I will refer to as creative paralysis.

I have a lot of things I want to do, but with the freedom to work on any of them and lack of the structure I had established made it so I was doing and second-guessing and redoing and changing my mind as to if it was good enough.  There was an assumed apology with previous entries here "well I only had 24 hours" - but now with the freedoms I'm allowing myself, there are no excuses.

I'm reminded of a video poker game I built back in the early internets, easily worthy of being published freeware.  But I instead I thought would add  the ability to import your own deck of cards.  ... and then what about allowing you to paint your own deck of cards.  ... and then what about adding a CD player to the program ... custom sounds ... etc.  Feature creep in hindsight that was probably to avoid publishing.

You feel exposed, it's a bit of an assumption when you make something and say - "I created this for you to enjoy".  I want it to be something great, but I have to realize and not to wax too poetic but it's a journey and not a destination.  So here we are - one step on the next bit of the journey together.

The idea for this image was to embody the notion of starting fresh with the knowledge of the past and the freedoms of the future, cliche idea perhaps - but I won't let that stop me.  The head is based on one of the designs from  Anastasya Sokol's faces collection. This is a simple example, but I really love the hair style varieties she's able to achieve. The body is a copy of the little girl by Tatyana Djeta Lyashko. One of my projects for this year should be to build bodies with more confidence, I think this style matched okay - but not perfect.

---

Other designs by or inspired by Anastasya Sokol:

---

Other designs by or inspired by Tatyana Djeta Lyashko:

January 1 - Ragnarok

Ragnarok.

You may have noticed that there is no balloons with this post, and it's intentional.  Einar Selvik does a great job explaining Ragnarok in the video above, but here is the text for the convenience and discussion (actual song starts at 2:50):

"... in the old Norse way of thinking, everything moved in cycles.  So it is basically telling the story about a ring that ends, but also a ring that begins.  So something needs to die for something else to live, and these days, when the sun is turning - that is what it is about.  To let die what needs to die, it's the end of the death cycle of the year.  In these days, this is when summer is born.  This is when light of the year is born."

What does this mean for this blog?  Effectively I'm going to attempt to make a few big changes in order to foster a better artistic space, part of which is letting a couple rules die in order to allow something else to grow.

1. No more daily posts. It is a great motivator, but it's a distraction to doing anything "bigger" than what you might accomplish in the day span.  That is not to say it won't be daily occasionally, depending on what I get involved with.

2. Purple is not required.  Again, this doesn't mean he's gone - he's here, and most likely will be all over here.  But he's just getting a bit worn, like butter scraped over too much bread.  Perhaps we'll find occasion to use one of his brothers.   Additionally this year there were a few occasions that the "purple photo" wasn't my favorite of the batch to share (shocking I know).

I realize these are two of the cornerstone rules that this blog was initially founded on, they are both part of the blog title even!  But it's a new year and once again time to analyze and evolve - and there are a number of projects and ideas I'm anxious to get started on in this third year.  Happy 2018!