December 30 - Alp Hund

“Every time I go to sleep, I know I may never wake up. How could anyone expect to? You drop your tiny, helpless mind into a bottomless well, crossing your fingers and hoping when you pull it out on its flimsy fishing wire it hasn't been gnawed to bones by nameless beasts below.”

~ Isaac Marion, Warm Bodies

An Alp is a creature from Germanic folklore who resembles an elf.  It comes to you in the night and twists your dreams into nightmares.  In fact the German word for nightmare is Alptraum, the German word for dream is Traum...

The next creature in the balloon bestiary is an Alp Hund, these blind creatures use a psycho-cognitive ability to hunt and feast upon night terrors.  Oftentimes they will follow an Alp on his nightly haunt anticipating a delicious and malevolent repast.  It's tail is tipped with a vicious stinger that can paralyze a sleeper inside of the dream.  If you have ever have a nightmare wherein your legs refuse to move and you feel trapped, keep your eyes shut tight - keep to the safety of the monsters in your imaginations.

December 28 - Dagon

I cannot think of the deep sea without shuddering at the nameless things that may at this very moment be crawling and floundering on its slimy bed, worshipping their ancient stone idols and carving their own detestable likenesses on submarine obelisks of water-soaked granite. I dream of a day when they may rise above the billows to drag down in their reeking talons the remnants of puny, war-exhausted mankind -- of a day when the land shall sink, and the dark ocean floor shall ascend amidst universal pandemonium.

~ H.P. Lovecraft Dagon

Dagon is one of the earlier works of Howard Phillips Lovecraft and details the account of a man who escaped capture at sea only to later be washed up on an unnatural shore, seemingly thrust from the bottom of the sea by a volcanic expansion. Upon exploring this wasteland, he comes across a monolith with pictorial carvings and hieroglyphics the likes of which he had never seen, with aquatic symbols and ominous marine humanoids with bulbous eyes.

He flees in horror when he catches sight of one of these grotesque creatures, but is endlessly pursued even after returning to San Francisco. The creature haunts both his waking moments and dreams, and the narrator believes that only morphine or death will will give him any respite. There is a sloshing sound from the hallway and the story ends rather abrup...

This balloon design is based on one of Buster Balloon's head designs I used last year that I referred to as Surly Dudes.

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Other Lovecraftian balloon designs:

December 27 - The Candy Cane Man

On the day after Christmas, in the dead of the night,
Make sure you're asleep, and your kids are tucked tight.
For tonight is the night of the midnight explorer,
Who goes house to house, a peppermint horror.
He's searching for those who have taken his young,
Wrapped them in plastic and decoratively hung.
Heed this warning, though it's no guarantee -
But make sure you've eaten the canes off the tree.
Throw them away, or do what you can,
To avoid the wrath of the Candy Cane Man.

This balloon was inspired by Alex Pardee, who posted another of his amazing monstrosities with an after-Christmas poem about "Fun Henry".  It's so good, you should go read it now: link.

It got me thinking of the nozzle-monster I made last year around this time, and I thought to recreate him with balloons and candy cane fingers.

I tried a few ways to get some snarly teeth, but eventually scrapped the idea because it kept creating too much separation between balloons.  Perhaps if I had drastically under-inflated the middle section ...

December 26 - Dark Young Seedling

“Something black in the road, something that wasn’t a tree. Something big and black and ropy, just squatting there, waiting, with ropy arms squirming and reaching . . . It came crawling up the hillside . . . and it was the black thing of my dreams—that black, ropy, slime jelly tree-thing out of the woods. It crawled up and it flowed up on its hoofs and mouths and snaky arms.”

~ Robert Bloch Notebook Found in a Deserted House

Lovecraft's Shub-Niggurath is one of the Outer Gods in the pantheon, said to be the progenitor of the "thousand young" or "dark young".

When spawned, they are suckled by their mother, where they latch on with their powerful limbs, each tipped with a single sharp tooth.  Their gaping maw consumes not only the milk, but the flesh of their mother until cast aside to roam the cosmos.

Fully formed Dark Young stand over twelve feet tall and are roughly tree shaped with a mass of tentacles and gaping maws dripping with green goo.  They are often called upon to reside over cult ceremonies and act as proxies to Shub-Niggurath by accepting the sacrifices.

Adorable!