October 12 - Gemar Baby Blue

My my baby blue
Yeah I been thinkin' about you

~ Jaded - Aerosmith - Just Push Play (2001)

Gemar Baby Blue is a great color in the baby blue lineup.  

It's the one that I currently have in my kit for that super light blue, but this bag happened to be shoved in with the others that I'm trying to run through first to assuage some guilt.  

I started a flat weave that ended up turning into the Moray eel Isopresso taught fairly recently.  I feel like these color exercises are "practice days" in general though.

Gemar really has a good textural feel on their balloons, and when I get that feeling I need textural healing.   ...  they have the science down.  As ever, my only complaint is that there is less powder than I need for the tightness that I roll my bundles, even recent purchases seem to get sticky.   

Overall assessment, I liked them enough to immediately use them in replacement of my baby blues, but I'm having some second thoughts because I bundle tight and even though they typically inflate fine in the end, it's jarringly different.

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Other "color day" balloons:

October 11 - Baby Dragon

"Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten."

~ G.K. Chesterton

At what age do you stop calling something a "baby" when it lives for a thousand years?

I feel that for anything long-lived, it's all about the mid-years.  You age up to a point where your organs are large enough to support your system and don't deteriorate.  When that system finally starts to fail, you enter the elder years - when your organs can't repair damage fast enough anymore.

So this little guy must be just a few months old ... 

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This is another design shared by Marina Filatova from her collection of double-stuffed creatures.  Double-stuffing is a bit of a finger burner, and my small pump is not giving consistent air - I think I was breathing flames at one point.

(view other dragon)

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Other balloons by and inspired by Marina Filatova:

October 10 - Panda

"The bamboo that bends is stronger than the oak that resists."

~ Japanese proverb

It's one of the usual suspects in a balloon technique > Panda, Penguin, Dog, Bee, Elephant, Frog ...

Just a lil' guy doing his lil' thing in the lil' banboo forest.

I heard what I said.  
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Marina Filatova shared this technique in a series of tutorials I purchased years ago that sort of got lost in the shuffle. They are a lesson in double-stuffing, but probably more important, they are an -exercise- in double-stuffing!


(view other pandas)

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Other balloons by and inspired by Marina Filatova:

October 9 - Bull

"It is not how much we give, but how much love we put into giving."

~ Mother Teresa

Life as a plushie toy at the Windslow house was anything but routine.

Most mornings I fall out of bed, or get stepped on or dropped before breakfast.

By sunset, I've been squished, squashed and used for a hat more than once.

But every night, I get scooped up.

She needs me.

And that's what matters.

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This uses Marina Filatova's double-stuffing design ideas, the way the feet are attached to the body base create a nice tripod area to sit on. I made this with horns but had referred to this as a cow for a while, I have to remember two cows - when I make a cow I have to make an udder.  (Ba-dum-tish!)

 
(view other cows)

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Other balloons by and inspired by Marina Filatova:

October 8 - Mouse

"Call me by my name and I will answer with my soul."

~ African proverb

You have limited options with a mouse in the house.

It is a rodent. It is vermin.  You know what to do - you just have to decide how humanely you want to do it.

Having made the ultimate decision, you name him "Chewbacca" and for the next few days you cheer as it runs just out of sight.

This false hope you give him - this is a joy that he carries in his heart as the shock of the spring trap fatally slams against his spine.  Blissfully happy.  Peaceful.

SNAP!

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This mouse is a balloon shown by Marina Filatova with her double-stuffed technique.  I made the body a little too tall, squatter would be cuter.  This is not a technique that allows for easy adjustment once you commit.

(view other mice)

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Other balloons by and inspired by Marina Filatova:

October 7 - Dolphin

"If dolphins could talk and tell us their secrets, we might rethink everything we think we know about intelligence."

~ Carl Sagan

Dolphins are never fully asleep, they rest one hemisphere of their brain at a time.  Half awake, half dreaming.

Like Monday, pre-coffee - trying to click the right buttons on the thingy to make the stuff you need.

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This dolphin design is from CJ Nelson/Twister's Cookbook and his series "Everyday 350s".  Which ... I suppose should now be called "Yesterday 350s" 😢

(view other dolphin)

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Other balloons by and inspired by CJ Nelson:

October 6 - Witch

"Some people without brains do an awful lot of talking, don't they?"

~ Scarecrow, The Wizard of Oz (1939)

Witches are green because of the Wizard of Oz movie.

Baum did reference the Wicked Witch as being green - I can't imagine he meant technicolor green.  The film being such a historic cinematic event took some liberties with the written work.

Elphaba and the Wizards elixer conveniently retcon it all though, we're good.

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This design seemed appropriate, as I've been working through Isopresso's design list like I'm catching all the Pokemon.

(view other witches)

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Other balloons by and inspired by Isopresso:

October 5 - Gemar Orange

I'm Going back to Saturn where the rings all glow
Rainbow, moonbeams and orange snow

~ Stevie Wonder - Saturn (1976)

These balloons were great.  Gemar has the balloon formula down.  My only complaint is they don't (seem to) enjoy being tightly bundled.

Sporangebob Squarepants is a thing.

The fish was a Nao Osaka design, and the egg has become a fairly standard build test at this point.

Overall impression of Gemar orange - they're great, I'd hazard to say even better than Sempertex, and if they could take being in a tight bundle without being too worse for wear, they would be my new orange probably.

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Other "color day" balloons:

October 4 - Bat

"The bat flits at close of eve, the little birds are piping yet."

~ Alfred, Lord Tennyson

In French - Chauve-souris - bald mouse.

In German - Fledermaus - flutter mouse.

In Spanish - Murciégalo - blind mouse.

In Italian - Pipistrello - little evening one.

In my attic - EEEEGETOUTGETOUT - intruder.
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This bat design uses a Linda Truscheit's cat head as the main facial structure, I have been looking over past balloon concepts feeling a need to update and organize them.  I built a new "Balloon Concepts" page on the blog website that gives a pretty good way to look at the collections.  

(view other bats)

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Other balloons by and inspired by Linda Truscheit:

October 3 - Bat

"The bat is dun with wrinkled wings, like leafless ivy bound about a tree."

~ William Blake

While the bees are sleeping, night pollination is handled by the bats.

Mangoes, bananas and especially agave - so next time you have a margarita, you'll know who put in the work for that tequila!

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Andri Balloon shared this bat design on his YouTube channel - seems like it could be worn pretty easily.
(view other bats)

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Other balloons by and inspired by Isopresso:

October 2 - Bat

"And now at last, it comes: you will be free to fly into the night like a bat from hell."

~ William Faulkner

A group of bats is called a colony, a cloud or a cauldron.

A cloud I could see as a description of a swarm in the sky.

A colony - okay I'm with you, a community.

A cauldron?  .... am I wrong in thinking we don't need a "special flavor" group for every animal?   This one feels a little weak.  

"Bunch of" is a pretty good generic catch all.

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This bat design was supplied by Graham Lee on his YouTube channel.

(view other bats)

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Other balloons by and inspired by Graham Lee:

October 1 - Bat

"Sometimes the smallest things take up the most room in your heart."

~ A.A. Milne

The bumblebee bat lives in caves in Thailand and Myanmar.  It's the smallest bat in the world weighs about as much as a penny.

+2 cuteness points for the alliteration.

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The Jojo bat felt like a "must do" when I learned there was this little bumblebee guy.

The wings were a bit fiddly to get set initially, but stay fairly well once set.  

(view other bats or jojos)

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Other balloons by and inspired by Tobi Twist: