January 31 - Little Body Football

"Nobody who ever gave his best regretted it."

~ George 'Papa Bear' Halas

The Superbowl is no longer a celebration of football - it's a giant commercial dedicated to consumption, dressed up as a national tradition.  

Every year, they polish it a little more -- milking 20 minutes of actual game into a spectacle of commercials, halftime shows, and excessive pomp that often overshadows the game itself.  It's an exhibition of wasteful spending by advertisers paying top dollar to sell us soda and whatever streaming service is the latest flavor of the week.   

Yeah .. I'll probably watch it.  Shut up.

This is one of Stephanie Morace's design examples that she demonstrated, and I think the form works great for that bucket style helmet.  I did try to add legs because the uniforms oftentimes have that color differentiation .. but I don't think I ended with anything that improved anything.  This is already kind of at the sweet spot between 'enough features' and 'all the features' as is.

(view other Little Bodies)

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Other balloons by and inspired by Stephanie Morace:

January 30 - Little Body Great Apes

"Consider orangutans. In all the worlds graced by their presence, it is suspected that they can talk but choose not to do so in case humans put them to work, possibly in the television industry. In fact they can talk. It’s just that they talk in Orangutan. Humans are only capable of listening in Bewilderment."

~ Terry Pratchett Men at Arms

Stephanie also demonstrated a few ways to turn her Little Body basic concept into a few different animals.  It involves a slight change to the basic structure - but I feel that they deviate somewhat from the original concept.

I tried to do it, but I still found myself wanting to change things to make it more 'animal'.  These guys really needed eyes to pull the face together, without them, they felt too abstract, like something was missing..

(view other Little Bodies)

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Other balloons by and inspired by Stephanie Morace:

January 29 - Little Body Pirates

"Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while."

~ Wesley The Princess Bride

During the pandemic, an ensemble of Hollywood actors released a shot-for-shot fan-made remake of the Princess Bride to benefit the World Food Kitchen.  It's amazing at points, hilariously bad at others -- but if you are a fan of the movie it will be a hard thing to stop watching.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lR8pA_WV9QI

These pirates were one of the examples shown by Stephanie as she demonstrated some variations on her Little Body concept.

I built the Dread Pirate Roberts/Wesley in response, though he looks a bit like a generic robber.  The skull & crossbones really adds a lot to the pirate image.

(view other Little Bodies)

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Other balloons by and inspired by Stephanie Morace:

January 28 - Little Body X-Men

"When an individual acquires great power, the use or misuse of that power is everything."

~ Charles Xavier X-Men: The Last Stand

Playing around with Stephanie's Little Body idea, this time with some superheroes. 

I never really enjoyed the Jean/Scott/Logan love triangle - and honestly found it a little unsettling that some cool leather jacket dude would come in and romance away your long term girlfriend.   

That said, I also never really found Cyclops to be that cool or powerful.  He effectively has the uncontrolled power of one of Superman's eyes?  ... and if he loses that goggle, he can't open his eyes or he'll nuke the city.  He's a liability.

(view other Little Bodies)

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Other balloons by and inspired by Stephanie Morace:

January 27 - Boubou and Gele

"The strength of African women is woven into the fabrics they wear, each thread telling a story of resilience."

~ Maya Angelou

Today's balloon was inspired by the vibrant beauty of African women and their fashion.  

The boubou is a traditional West African garment worn by both men and women, oftentimes made with amazing colorful fabrics and ornate patterns -- whereas the gele is the iconic headwrap. 

A woman adorned in boubou and gele is a pinnacle of grace and beauty.  While I had originally planned enhancing the dress with bold patterns, I decided simplicity might be best to try and capture the essence than trying to overwork any details.

(view other Little Bodies)

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Other balloons by and inspired by Stephanie Morace:

January 26 - Papal Pig

All that you touch - you Change.
All that you Change - Changes you.
The only lasting truth is Change.
God is Change

~ Octavia Butler Parable of the Sower

I love the "karaoke effect".

When you are going to sing karaoke soon, listening to songs takes on a whole new meaning.  You assess and weigh and measure and hum each tune to see if it hits right or you shouldn't bother with it --- music has more flavor when you're planning to sing karaoke.

I'm feeling the karaoke effect more and more these days as I've returned to making balloons.

A Papal Pig (not to be confused with that PayPal pig) was a delightfully stupid idea I had filed away ages ago, but inspiration struck as my wife read the above quote from her current book.

(view other Little Bodies)

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Other balloons by and inspired by Stephanie Morace:

January 25 - Little Body Wizard

As Malkieth raises his staff to utter the incomprehensible words, a shuddering ripple of violet light tore through the void. The ground beneath him cracked, exhaling a sickly, sulfurous mist as the air grew heavy with the stench of decay. 

A low, guttural rumble echoed from the abyss, heralding the arrival of the Great Purple Pig - its hide glistening with the ichor of worlds long devoured. Eyes like white glowing embers bore into Malkieth’s soul as the beast emerged, its colossal form both magnificent and terrifying. 

The summoning was complete, but one question lingered - Would the world bow before its majesty, or crumble beneath its wrath?

This is another attempt at using Stephanie's Little Body design.  That staff/unicorn horn technique is something that I've known for a while but I've never practiced doing, so it was fun to give it a few goes this time.  It definitely took some attempts to get the feel of the right pressure and not overcommitting as you are doing it.

(view other Little Bodies)

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Other balloons by and inspired by Stephanie Morace:

January 24 - Little Body Chef

"I think spending that time and using that time on the people that we love is how we show them that we love them."

~ Stevie (John Mulaney) The Bear - 7 Fishes

I really do have a wonderfully good amount of stuff to catch up on.  Just this week I discovered there was a whole second Q Corner Convention I didn't know about and I have about 20 more hours to go!

Stephanie Morace once again dazzled (re-dazzled?) us by refining her Little Body concept and showing a number of variations and ways to upsize them that she has worked on.  This chef in particular was one of a series she would build in part to help thank the servicepeople who helped us during the darker days of the pandemic.  💕

A great design to (re)add to the toolkit - time to get to work!

(view other Little Bodies)

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Other balloons by and inspired by Stephanie Morace:

January 23 - Loopy Pigz

"It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes... or pigs."

~ Douglas Adams

So with this post, I'm drawing the primary run of the Loopy Headz balloons to an end.  Tradition has the last of any balloon concept be a purple pig, and I feel like this technique lent itself perfectly to the task.  I ended up building a few styles.

Super great concept to begin with, it gave a lot of good squishy 360 work, a big wide surface to practice eyeballs, and was no frills quick enough to work with that it was tolerable for the most part to use my super old balloon stock.

It seems like this would fit perfect for some casual linework, since you can accessorize and enhance a basic form as much as you have time for.  

(view other pigs)

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Other balloons by and inspired by the David Brenn:

January 22 - Loopy Warner Broz

“Looney Tunes didn’t just entertain; they set the bar for animation as an art form.”

~ Steven Spielberg

Disney always sort of takes the limelight, but the characters with the biggest personalities are certainly from Warner Bros.

Daffy doesn't have a rich uncle, like Donald "Fontleroy" -- he was raised on the hard streets of Toonville.  Where dodging falling anvils and dynamite-wielding rabbits is just another Saturday afternoon.

One thing I find interesting is that the cheeks of WB characters are a much taller, turning them sideways fills out their faces well for that. 

Other balloons by and inspired by David Brenn:

January 21 - Pianoman

"Sing us a song you're the pianoman,
A fusion of ivory and meat.
You were born in a terrible accident,
Don't worry we think it's quite neat.

When you speak you sound just like a keyboard,
Your fingers look just like the keys,
Your a horrible instru-monstrosity,
Yet somehow you put us at ease."

~ Ellis Piper

You sang us a song for this masterpiece,
To Ellie, all credit is due.
She strums up a monstrous creation,
That's somehow both charming and true.

With a laugh, she brought life to piano,
A fusion of whimsy and art.
Ellie, your vision is genius,
I love it with all of my heart!

I was simply minding my own business when this little ear worm popped up on a YouTube short and I couldn't get enough. Thank you for the inspiration, Ellie Piper Music! -> @elliepipermusic   

January 20 - Cult of Luna

I never used to care much for 'cookie monster' vocals. As someone who’s been a metalhead for mathity-math years, they used to grate on me—until someone reframed it.

Don't think of it as singing, it is simply an emotionally charged instrument.

It's bleu cheese -- super weird, maybe even a little gross when you first taste it.  But not only might you get used to it -- you might actually start to crave it a little.

I feel so lucky to have stumbled across Cult of Luna through a random YouTube next click. Not only are they brilliant musicians, but they’re also pushing boundaries - for their recent release, they put out a video game on Steam that syncs so perfectly with one of their songs ..  I am the perfect demographic I will grant you -- but it was a serious next-level idea and experience.  I was blown away.

(YouTube Link - A Greater Call)