April 30 - Li'l Alien

“I'm sure the universe is full of intelligent life. It's just been too intelligent to come here.”

~ Arthur C. Clarke

These Li'l Aliens are also inspired by Jackie Ochitwa's Q Corner Convention class. 

I had originally made the generic LGM alien, which is cute and yadayada - but I feel like cute isn't a challenge at this point with the technique.

Lets get lumpy!

I had in mind a lumpy headed alien whose eyes were constantly swirling around in a fluid sac.  Still cute - just with a bit of added goo!




(view other aliens)

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Other Jackie Ochitwa inspired balloons:

April 29 - Li'l Heroes

“Anyone who does anything to help a child in his life is a hero to me. ”

~ Fred Rogers

Just a quick trip into some superheroes using Jackie Ochitwa's Li'l Guy body form.

Spiderman ended up being more pen work than I imagined at the outset, the plain blue did not work well as the body.

Hulk is the first of these that was built with (a ratty mop of) hair.

Venom showed that the shape of the head is important, which points out something interesting.  Our heads are typically more vertical oval bean shaped, these "kawaii" heads are horizontal beans.  Round shapes don't seem to work well for humanoid heads.

... and yes, Dr. Manhattan was built anatomically correct.   If curiosity is getting the better of you, I've made it clickable.




(view other superheroes)

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Other Jackie Ochitwa inspired balloons:

April 28 - Li'l Devil

“When devils will the blackest sins put on
They do suggest at first with heavenly shows”

~ William Shakespeare

I was thinking with all of these kawaii Li'l Guys -- they're cute, but I like things with a little more slime and dirt in them.

What is the opposite ... the kawaii-not?   Sure you could really dirty it up with penwork, but what are the simple adds we can do to make things scary/ugly/evil?

It boils down to one simple thing.  Eyebrows.  I made a basic devil and just gave a bit angrier eyebrows.  Even with a smile, angry eyebrows make for a mischievous expression.

I rebuilt a Cadillac version and mounted it on a flame (6, booya!).




(view other devils)

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Other Jackie Ochitwa inspired balloons:

April 27 - Li'l Pig

Teacher: Kids what does a chicken give you?
Students: Eggs
Teacher: Very good now what does the pig give you?
Kids: Bacon
Teacher: Excellent now what does the fat cow give you?
Kids: Homework

Probably already expected at this point, but I do feel compelled to try a purple pig version of any balloon concept.

Jackie Ochitwa's "kawaii" creatures are a very versatile form, but there are two main issues you need to work with - first - they are not very poseable, second - there is no easy ear attachment points.

I ran into the same problems with ears as the tiger, but I think worked out a pretty decent solution this time with the pig.



(view other devils)

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Other Jackie Ochitwa inspired balloons:

April 26 - SciFiBeatlesGleek

Escape plan? when no one’s left walk out the front door.

~ Jacob Frye, Assassin's Creed Syndicate

SciFiBeatlesGleek is a long-time DeviantArtist who offered a YCH with a few Assassin's Creed poses.  I opted for the (joyful) aerial assassination.

Assassin's Creed games are some of the best story telling vehicles around.  The game engine is beautiful and immersive, the dialog fluid, and I've gotten heavily emotionally invested in some of these characters -- they do a great job of compelling you to glorious heroism.

That said, the last one I played was Syndicate (from the quote) and it was a hot mess with a cheeze-ball cop-out story, this is the 9th installment in the series though, so some slack is given, but this felt more like Batman cleaning up a early London rather than any sort of Assassin's Creed I've played.

April 25 - LexSyn

Delenn: This is Ambassador Delenn of the Minbari. Babylon 5 is under our protection. Withdraw or be destroyed!
Earth Force Officer: Negative! We have authority here. Do not force us to engage your ship.
Delenn: Why not? Only one human captain has ever survived battle with a Minbari Fleet. He is behind me. You are in front of me. If you value your lives, be somewhere else!

~ Babylon 5 Severed Dreams episode

*Chills*  If you know what I'm talking about with that quote, one of my favorite moments from the series.

LexSyn is a DeviantArtist from the United States and offered to design us a space captain.  This was meant as one of the original "February" pig lot and to be paired with a story, but timing never really worked out so they don't really fit together.  So you are left with me.

I really like the layered effect he gets on the helmet goggles, the image itself reminds me of a video game from the 90s.  This is a hotshot pilot (one pirate kill) in the space platoon that has swooped in to to cover you at the crucial point on your important mission.

April 24 - Li'l Big Cats

That bungled goodbye hurts me to this day. I wish so much that I'd had one last look at him in the lifeboat, that I'd provoked him a little, so that I was on his mind. I wish I had said to him then - yes, I know, to a tiger, but still - I wish I had said, "Richard Parker, it's over. We have survived. Can you believe it? I owe you more gratitude than I can express I couldn't have done it without you. I would like to say it formally: Richard Parker, thank you. Thank you for saving my life."

~ Yann Martel, Life of Pi

Such a powerful movie and a moving scene, I need a moment ...  These are inspired by Jackie Ochitwa's class and a wavy orange balloon.

I wasn't content with how I got the ears to fit into the base, so I built lions instead using a similarly styled muzzle.

At some point Qualatex decided they needed balloons with waves on them and around that same point in time, my compulsion made me get some.  I have 4 bags of various colors, and I think I have probably used 4 total balloons out of them.

You can imagine how excited I was when I got to use one for this li'l tiger.   ... so .. 5.



(view other lions, tigers)

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Other Jackie Ochitwa inspired balloons:

April 23 - Li'l Narwahl

“...you never truly win a conservation battle - you just win the right to fight another day. Like an alcoholic, the environment is never saved. It always needs saving.”

~ Joshua Horwitz

Next Jackie Ochitwa shared how she makes her Li'l Narwahl using this base form.

I tried building a couple different horn styles, the single wrapped looks better but feels less stable than the double horn.  I wanted to play around and see if if there were other sea creatures this would fit well with.

This base is very simple and somewhat cartoon-ish, you really need something distinct to define the character.   So something generic like a whale I think would be hard to realize, but something distinct like a beluga whale which would be white.

The walrus turned out great.  Coo-coo ka choo.



(view other whales)

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April 22.5 - Li'l Dragon

“We men (and women) dream dreams, we work magic, we do good, we do evil. The dragons do not dream. They are dreams. They do not work magic: it is their substance, their being. They do not do; they are.”

~ Ursula K. Le Guin, The Farthest Shore

During the class Jackie Ochitwa taught, she mentioned going to her Instagram to reference the face artwork she does and I noticed she had a cute little green dragon.

Sometimes balloons look better in person than they do in a photo because of the 2-D representation of the 3-D image.  The standing version came first but didn't have a very dragon-y feel because the only thing that says "dragon" at all are the dorsal ridges which can't be visible from any angle where he would be facing you.

I built it again sitting and gave him more of a grrr face, but it had the same problems.   I had to cheat like a 2-D animator for the shot.  Notice in any cartoon where a girl has her hair bound in a ponytail, the hair and usually the scrunchy holding it are always visible outside of a transition move. 

The dorsal fins are set at about a 30º angle for visibility in the main shot.




(view other dragons)

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Other Jackie Ochitwa inspired balloons:

April 22 - Rainbow

Mother Earth Mother Earth
so glad that you gave birth
there is life in all I see
there is life in Everything (Everything)
Everyday in an Earthday
celebrating her birthday (birthday)
Rainbows and butterflies
Green Mountains and Blue skies

~ Paul Izak, Mother Earth (click!)

Happy Earth Day!

It seems almost paradoxical that this year we are probably doing better for Earth than on any previous Earth Day organized event.  Keeping home, going on nature walks, working in the garden. 

This balloon design is one taught by Song Junlin (fusen_zero), slightly modified to be more inclusive.

April 21 - Li'l Chick

 

How funky is your chicken?
How loose is your goose?
Now come on everybody!
And shake your caboose!

Jackie Ochitwa's class at the Q Corner Convention was full of these cute little "kawaii" animals.  This was the chick she taught, and a number of them follow this same over-sized head cutesy-chibi style, so for organizational purposes and because I still think of Kawaii as a Hawaiian Island every time I hear it, I'm going to refer to these as Li'l Guys.

She suggested that you could use a smaller quicklink for the head and I actually think that works better since it keeps closer in color to the rest and is easily big enough as is.

You can see how easily this simple form could be any number of li'l birds with just a color change, brown/white/black for a li'l chicken, head feathers sideways for a li'l cockatiel, the head attachment allows for easy spin so it's perfect for a li'l owl or a li'l exorcism.



(view other birds, chicks, chickens)

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Other Jackie Ochitwa inspired balloons:

April 20 - Wörmungandr

“It’s the end of the day, but it feels like dawn, and a new beginning. It comes to me that both twilight periods are, in fact, symmetrical events on opposite sides of midnight, a cycle of endless creation and destruction, an Ouroboros.”

~ Florian Armas, The Shamans at the End of Time

This is another one of those balloons that I had to build to get out of my brain, a blind worm eating it's tail, and really what better day to post it? 

This idea centered on the idea that Jormungandr doesn't particularly do anything significant before Ragnarok other than hold on and then let go of his tail.  He is not a catalyst, waking him doesn't start the event, he is nothing more than a meeting alert message.  So why does he have to be big enough to circle the world - was that to spice up a rather bland myth?   Wouldn't it be more convenient to have him centrally located?  How close to his head and tail on the Earth would you have to be to even notice it was time?



Related Post: Jörmungandr

April 19 - myudamageeee

“Earth without Art is Just Eh!”
~ AnkitMishra

myudamageeee is a long time DeviantArtist from Italy that offered to make us a Chibi version of our purple pig.  She has an amazing portfolio, you really get a sense that she is passionate about art.

The pig itself is already adorably chibi-cute, but adding the balloon animal companions is simply next level brilliant.

April 18 - akaritablue

“Art and love are the same thing: It’s the process of seeing yourself in things that are not you.”

~ Chuck Klosterman, Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story

Akaritablue is a DeviantArtist from the United Kingdom that stood out in a crowd.  She absolutely has a very cool artistic style and I like her hypnotic eye style, but what drew me to her work is that her sample images had an emotional component as well, confusion/anger/worry/regret.

This is the expression of someone who was just called "beautiful".  It's that point of flattering acceptance after the initial denial.

April 17 - Panda

“If you keep on doing what you do, you will never be more than who you are right now.”

~ Master Shifu Kung-Fu Panda

Wise words from Master Shifu on the benefit of practice.  It's a good reason why to go to a convention, or try something new, or make a new version of something that you already know how to make.  You grow from the change.

This panda design is another from Stephanie Morace - and even though I've built (let me count... whoa) 10 other panda on this site, there is still value in making others.

Not only is it distinctly different from others here but it's also, like all of the designs Stephanie shared with us, an amazingly quick, simple and effective.  (Which should be obvious by how many were built!)

Panda with sons, P and A.

(view other bear, panda)

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