June 28 - PhantomAlphaArt

“This little piggy went to Hades
This little piggy stayed home
This little piggy ate raw and steaming human flesh
This little piggy violated virgins
And this little piggy clambered over a heap of dead bodies to get to the top”

~ Neil Gaiman

PhantomAlphaArt is a DeviantArtist from the United States.  Much of her art was dragons or some sort of winged beast so I was looking forward to what she might come up with here.

This is her "Keeper of the Molten Hellscape" - The keeper of Hell, trapped forever guarding its glowing depths.

I would say that she got the heart of the project and then devoured it whole.  This is the upgrade from that old three headed dog "whatshisname", a razor backed pig with an acid whip tail, broken free from it's chains it now roams the depths finding lost souls that it ruts up like truffles.

June 27 - ArtWithoutHeart

"I can't believe I fell for Muppet Man."

~ Miss Piggy The Muppets  (the movie)

ArtWithoutHeart is a DeviantArtist from Mexico that had some wonderfully surreal sample images and offered to have a go our pig.

What he came up with is equal parts magical and weird.  I can imagine a gigantic muppet-man filled with these trying to get away with buying only one ticket to the movie.  ... or maybe this is a superhero transformation and those are secret identity clothes ... or maybe some guys head is really just a purple pig.  It's a crazy world!

June 26 - Geo Dinos

All the explanations proposed seem to be only partly satisfactory. They range from massive climatic change to mammalian predation to the extinction of a plant with apparent laxative properties, in which case the dinosaurs died of constipation.

~ CARL SAGAN, Dragons of Eden

These are two of the balloon taught in the Balloon Brothers Geo Dome 2 tutorials, I thought it would be fun to make them together.  But then THIS happened ...

(view other dinosaur)

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Other balloons by and inspired by the Balloon Brothers:

June 25 - Azathoth

Outside the ordered universe [is] that amorphous blight of nethermost confusion which blasphemes and bubbles at the center of all infinity—the boundless daemon sultan Azathoth, whose name no lips dare speak aloud, and who gnaws hungrily in inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond time and space amidst the muffled, maddening beating of vile drums and the thin monotonous whine of accursed flutes.

~ HP Lovecraft, The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

Here is another one I'm going to cross off the bucket list.  I've wanted to build Azathoth for a while and the ideas presented in the Balloon Brother's Geo Dome 2 tutorials I felt were a good fit for what I had in mind.

Azathoth is the creator diety of the elder gods, not the progenitor, all of reality is a manifestation of its dreams and if were ever to awaken, everything is immediately erased from all of existence.  

So metal.  \m/

(view other gods)

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Other balloon designs or inspiration from the Balloon Brothers:

June 24 - Alien

Well, I saw the thing comin' out of the sky
It had the one long horn, one big eye
I commenced to shakin' and I said "ooh-eee"
It looks like a purple eater to me
It was a one-eyed, one-horned, flyin' purple people eater!

~ The Purple People Eater

Site unseen I would have never thought the alien the Balloon Brothers were going to teach on their Geo Domes 2 tutorials would be this cool.  I love their design!

The decision to build it purple was really because it's was the biggest leftover color in my multipacks so far.

(view other aliens)

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Other balloon designs or inspiration from the Balloon Brothers:

June 23 - Minion

"Ba-nah-nah na-na-nana, Ba-nah-nah na-na-nana,
 Bananaaaaaahhhhh, Potato naaaaaaah ..."

 ~ Minions, Barbaranna (I'm guessing)

This Minion was one taught by the Balloon Brothers in their Geo Domes 2 tutorial series.  I thought making an evil minion would be a fun way to play with the idea.

This was probably more fun than I should admit to in coming up with an idea for a photo of these two together, and settled with a light BBQ roasting.

It feels at times a bit of a cheat to always go for the cyclops minion, but it's really perfect for this style.




(view other minion)

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Other balloons like this:

June 22 - Big Bird

Blue, blue windows behind the stars,
Yellow moon on the rise,
Big birds flying across the sky,
Throwing shadows on our eyes.

~ Neil Young, Helpless

Big Bird is another of the muppets taught by the Balloon Brothers, but again I felt a need to change the body around slightly (I liked the shape it just wasn't "big").

I was chuckling to myself while I built this how funny it would be to make his right arm attached by a string, but without gluing it to the front and really drawing attention to it, things get a little lost in translation .. or something.

What is Big Bird's origin story?  Is he a species or a unique creature (is there an even-bigger daddy)?  I can't imagine he got this big by eating bird seed alone...

(view other muppets)

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Other balloons by and inspired by the Balloon Brothers:

June 21 - televicat

Oh my, my, I'm your ice cream man, stop me when I'm passin' by
See now all my flavors are guaranteed to satisfy.

~ John Brim, The Ice Cream Man

This is large scoop of bizarre and that's my favorite flavor. This YCH offering was to have your character sticking out of an ice cream scoop.

televicat is a Swedish DeviantArtist with today's tasty treat.  I can say with confidence that after giving things that might make sense a chance, like potato chips and popcorn, that bacon flavored ice cream would be terrible.

If you disagree, I'm going to assume you would also try to convince me that pineapple on pizza is actually pretty good.

June 20 - Maltxd

"It's just like... Dude, you get the best barrels ever, dude. It's just like, you pull in, and you just get spit outem'. You just drop in, smack the lip... Waapah! Just drop down... Swoopah! And then after that you just drop in, ride the barrel and get pitted, so pitted."

~ Micah Peasley describing an ideal surfing spot

I happened to be browsing the right place at the right time when Maltxd said that he was interested in starting commissioning.

Maltxd is a brand new DeviantArtist from Denmark and are you even kidding me!?  Let's just say "I'm totally stoked". The amount of effort he put in to making this such a custom and stylized piece using his art style is mind blowing.

This dude is about to get pitted so hard. 

June 19 - Oscar the Grouch

They got a character on there named Oscar, they treat this guy like shit the entire show. They judge him right in his face, "Oscar you are so mean! Isn't he kids?", "Yeah Oscar! Your a grouch!", it's like "B***H! I LIVE IN A F***ING TRASHCAN!"

~ Dave Chapelle

Poor Oscar ...

This Oscar the Grouch is taught by the Balloon Brothers in Geo Domes 2 as another practice piece for the technique, playing around with eyebrows.  

The trashcan appears out of proportion, but that's before you take into account the Tardis-like effect of the inside of Oscar's home.  

So, why didn't they give Oscar a makeover the way they did Cookie Monster?  Oscar the "sometimes" Grouch?   Vacation home in the recycle bin?  As a kid I kind of just assumed he ate all the trash ... but maybe he is sorting it into recyclable waste.

(view other muppets)

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Other balloons by and inspired by the Balloon Brothers:

June 18 - Ernie

Rubber duckie you're the one
You make bath time lots of fun
Rubber duckie I'm awfully fond of you

Rubber duckie joy of joys
When I squeeze you, you make noise
Rubber duckie you're my very best friend it's true

~ Ernie, Rubber Ducky

Just goofing around a little more with this muppet base from Geo Domes 2.   

One of the tougher parts of making an Ernie or Bert would the stripes on their shirts, so making Ernie in the bathtub was probably the only way this was going to get done.

No idea what I was thinking with that duckie beak though, way too short.


(view other muppets)

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Other balloons by and inspired by the Balloon Brothers:

June 17 - Cookie Monster

"Om nom nom nom nom nom nom

~ Cookie Monster

This Cookie Monster design is based on the one shown by the Balloon Brothers in their Geo Dome 2 tutorials.

I wanted to try and go for a different open mouth, and this seemed the perfect character for it, stuffing his face with nozzle chip cookies.  

I've read that he now eats broccoli and considers cookies a "sometimes food" and as much as I might want to scoff at that, Americans are some of the heaviest people on the planet, maybe we could use a Broccoli Monster ...


(view other muppets)

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Other balloons by and inspired by the Balloon Brothers: