April 16 - Fauxlaf Cutting Room Floor

Original for reference

"I like warm farewells!"

~ Fauxlaf

My confession is this started as a bit of an April Fools joke, but ended up being a pretty fun creativity exercise.  Sooooo ... "April Fools!" I suppose ....

As with everything we've explored on the blog, I'm sure we could keep going.  As I write this I'm remembering I still need to build a cyborg, and a muscleman, and a two-headed giant, and .... 

But at this point things are getting too ... comfortable?  In most any sort of exercise, whenever something gets too comfortable - it's time to change things up.

So here a few of the remaining bits and baubles with the various reasons of why they didn't get used.

Fauxlaf Walter Brimley (Too random of a celebrity, thought I would make a Sam Spade or Porn Stache Policeman)	Fauxlaf Dead Skin Mask (Too drastic of a face swap, doesn't maintain anything Olaf except the eyes and lower jaw)
Fauxlafette (I wanted to add hair and never got it together)	Fauxlaf Googley Eyes (lame, no clear theme)
Fauxlaf Upside Down Face (idea didn't pan out to anything cool)	Fauxlaf Unibrow (prototype, no clear theme)

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Other Fauxlaf balloons:

April 15 - Delicious Fauxlaf

Original for reference

XX

~ Fauxlaf

This is my new favorite.

.. and it's one of the things I love about creativity challenges like this.  I'm not sure I would have come up with this if I hadn't exhausted doing other more easily imagined versions.

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Other Fauxlaf balloons:

April 14 - Zombie Fauxlaf

Original for reference

"Brrraaaiiiinnnns!"

~ Fauxlaf

So much balloon inkwork is defined by crisp lines, I started smudging around the sharpie marks and decided I should try and make a zombie.

The smudging worked really well for the teeth, they look rotten.

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Other Fauxlaf balloons:

April 13 - Fauxlaf Flowers

Original for reference

"I like worms!"

~ Fauxlaf

I went a little bit crazy with the markers on this one.   In hindsight it probably would have been better to have a blue background, perhaps some grass.  But I would have had to paint over the mouth and the black circle kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

You can still see the faint outline of his mouth.

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Other Fauxlaf balloons:

April 12 - Spider Fauxlaf

Original for reference

"I like warm bugs!"

~ Fauxlaf

The credit for this idea goes to my wife, who suggested the many eyes of a spider.  At first I made a bunch of them, but ended up painting them over in favor of attaching an extra two outside the normal eyes.

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Other Fauxlaf balloons:

April 11 - Fauxlaf Doll

Original for reference

"I mmph mmmrm mmmfs! "

~ Fauxlaf

The first time I tried making a creepy doll Fauxlaf I used cross hatching in black across the mouth and it looked a mess.  When I saw some hemp cord at the art store yesterday I thought it would do the trick.

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Other Fauxlaf balloons:

April 10 - Crazy Fauxlaf

Original for reference

"Eye lick warm hug!"

~ Fauxlaf

This Fauxlaf started with the eyes.  Having two drastically different sized eyes gives a bit of a crazy look.

I went to one of our local art stores and decided to try a different paint pen.  The blush nose uses a "Posca" (for the blush in the nose.  It's nice and opaque and fairly cheap, but takes a long time to dry.  There were a few other styles I think I'll go back and try...

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Other Fauxlaf balloons: