May 1 - Mini Yon

Bananaaaaaa..

"If you want creative workers, give them enough time to play."
  ~ John Cleese

Another entry in Christine Belcher's Twistina's Five Minute Balloon Delights Volume 4 is this minion. (called 'Mini Yon' to avoid the potential litigation I imagine :))

I've built minions before on the blog, but never so quickly.  The longest part of minion-making is typically the monocle, and Christine has a simple yet effective technique to crank these out.  First time I've ever made a two eyed minion!

BAA-NAnaaaaaaaaa	BANANAAAAAAA!
... and meeeeee!!!!

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Other posts with Christina's designs:	Other Minionss:
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April 30 - Wearables Grab Bag

Ready to form Voltron. Activate interlock.
Dynotherms - connected. Infracells - up.
Megathrusters are go! All form Voltron!
Let's go Voltron Force!

It's the end of April - already a third of the way through the year, I figure it's about time for some spring cleaning.  Every so often I will build something that for some reason or another just doesn't work for it's own blog post.

But together they form into mecha-blog post, capable of restoring peace to the galaxy and defending the Earth against King Zarkon's evil droid armies.

These first two are Jeff Hayes designs from his Seriously Out There DVD.  The brain in a jar is something he taught us as well in a webinar. I really have no idea what to do with headbands...

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This Flower Pot Hairband was taught by David Brenion is Balloon Magic #78. So. Random. This actually could have been a pretty cool post if I had put the effort into making a whole bunch of these and played around with varying the petal colors, but with the flowers being in their own vases it just seemed like a bunch of busy work rather than something exciting to do ... ... and I have no idea what to do with headbands...

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Ryan Lavallee showed us how to make a Pac Man bracelet in Balloon Blast Show season 3 episode 8. He showed us the blue ghost version which I thought would be instantly recognizable ... my kids had no clue.  #bahkidsthesedays  #stayoffmylawn

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Shark Hat by David Brenion - Balloon Magic #80 I love the look of this hat, the sidewall bubble in the front gives a nice pointed nose, and the artwork is so simple yet effective! I know even less of what to do with giant head wearables -- I struggled mostly with this one attempting to get a decent picture and they all pretty much ended up looking exactly like this.

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... rainbow head?  I have no idea what to do wi ... you get the idea.  But I do like how the lights turn each of these into little chubby faces.

April 29 - Hot Air Balloon

Smooching puff ball clouds
As the world diminishes
High up in the blue
 ~ Ginz & Tonic

Dave Hughens is a good sport, the type of guy who would wear a giant balloon costume while directing school traffic to help bring attention and sell tickets to an event ... and so he does.  My Devin, if you will.

We have a 7-wonders-of-the-world "Tent Event" going on, I had no idea what to build as a wearable something in that theme, so in the end I went with a hot air balloon in an attempt to capture an "Around The World In 80 Days" vibe.

As it ends up, the only 3' balloons I had were giant pink and a giant happy face.  It needs something more "balloonish", it looks a bit like a princess carriage to me, I didn't use helium since it was going to be used so briefly - and that made me have to account for supporting that giant balloon from flopping everywhere.  The next hot air balloon I build I might just go ahead and weave the entire thing so I can have some control (or use helium).

"Around the World in 80 Daves"

April 28 - Ice Cream

"Say Ernie, would you like some ice-cream?"

"Sure, Bert."

Let's wash that previous image of Christopher Lyle from our heads.

I first noticed Christopher Lyle, "The Man in the Yellow Suit", from his posts in various Facebook forums.  He has a talent at showcasing work that others have done and then upping them all with his own flair.  Like Weird Al covering one of your songs, Christopher Lyle showcasing one of your balloons is equivalent to "making it".  He has released one PDF entitled Sleightly Delusional, a guide for getting and keeping a high value restaurant gig - even though it doesn't pertain to my goals, I got it because of his enviable level of professionalism.  ... and there was plenty of information for me as well, and I stopped making excuses for my lame eye artwork and practiced for about a week straight.

This is one of Christopher Lyle's contributions to the Matt Falloon Flower Buds project, and it is typical of his work.  Big and delicious.

Soylent cream is purple!

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Other posts with Christopher's designs:



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April 27 - Creeper

"I think the more realistic you try to make the graphics and the experience, the more you limit yourself to a single vision."
  ~ Markus 'Notch' Persson

The Balloon Blast Show season 3 episode 8 (link) had the crappiest segement I've ever seen. ....

Christopher Lyle, broadcasting from his bathroom with hopefully the highest paid cameraman in California - showed two versions of his Creeper.  Yes.  He made a Creeper on the crapper, and now let us all take the proper amount of time to pause, sigh and then shake our heads sadly.

The first one I made has way too fat of a body, the body was rebuilt more than three times because of things deflating while trying to keep/thread a balloon in the center of the weave.  In the end I'm not even sure if I heard right, I usually watch tutorials a couple times ... but for some reason I only felt like once through on this one. :)

'SsssssSSSSSSSSssssSup?!

This thing sure comes in handy!  >click<

April 26 - Daisy the Cow

There was a herd of cattle all standing on a hill when an earthquake struck. All of the cows fell down, but the bull remained standing. The farmer noticing this went out and asked the bull, "Why didn't you fall down like the rest of the herd?"
The bull replied, "We bulls wobble, but we don't fall down."

Someone recently posted their attempt at this design and it made me want to try it again. This is another great design from Twistina's Five Minute Balloon Delights #4, I like the way she gives a nice full face without using a heart, and I love the chomping grass. I probably would have made them all that way if I had seen the variant earlier.

For being so simple, this is one of the better cow designs - the face structure I could see using for a number of different animals, and it's nice to be able to adjust the ears and horns after they are initially set. I really need to keep a record somewhere of all these different eye styles ...

Just an udder day in paradise!
To laugh is human but to moo is bovine.

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Other posts with Christina's designs:



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April 25 - Salty the Seahorse

See the sea horse in the sea.
Where else would the sea horse be?
For though it's dainty as a wish,
the sea horse is, you see, a fish.
~ David Elliot

This seahorse design is taught by Christina Belcher in her PDF - Twistina's Five Minute Balloon Delights Volume 4.  If I haven't said it before, this PDF is fantastic - there are so many great and unique designs I still use - I figured I'd try some of that I hadn't built yet.

This is a pretty quick and forgiving creature to make, you could probably really decorate this well with a few extra fins and color changes.

I can be dainty!

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Other posts with Christina's designs:



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