June 29 - Juan's Squirrel

Repetition makes us feel secure and variation makes us feel free.

~ Robert Hass

 and this quick line-work squirrel.  He used the attachment point at the bottom of the belly to connect to a wand (but that makes for difficult pictures).

I can't begin to tell you how much trouble it was trying to get that heart to sit right ...


(view other squirrel)

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Other Juan Gonzalez inspired balloons:

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: