December 8 - PPAkee

"Sometimes, you can't think everything out. You have to listen to your heart.' And, 'Heroic? Human? Those are just things people say after the fact... It's not what the people say afterward... What's important is being true to oneself."

~ Zidane, Final Fantasy IX

PPAkee is a DeviantArtist who had a JRPG styled sample and proposed building out pig in this same style.

The JRPG style is 100% on point, I could see this on a sign in a store as characters are walking by, like it's the latest Funko toy on the market, or an advertisement for a grape soda.

December 7 - popadorabledoesart

One person’s craziness is another person’s reality.

~ Tim Burton

There is a "weird" to popadorabledoesart's DeviantArt gallery that let me know this would be a fantastic commission.  This is "Pinned to Spot".

Instead of spikes coming out ... they are stabbing him.  But look at that happy expression, this is a good boy.  This guy just defended his owner from a porcupine attack and those trusses up top are to keep the quills from going deeper into the ear canals while he's getting helped.

That'll do pig.   That'll do.

December 6 - gytfu

"It's thanks to the wonders of genetic engineering that soon there will be an end to hunger, disease, pollution, even war. I have created things that will change the world for the better. For instance, here is a monkey with four asses. "

~ Dr. Alphonse Mephesto, South Park

gytfu is a Canadian DeviantArtist that had a fantastic idea to make some sort of animal hybrid.  I suggested that I wasn't sure if it should be a Oinktopus or an Octopig - and they ended up creating both..

This is the kind of Dr. Moreau hybridization I could get behind.  The Octopig has fully grow goateentacles.

December 5 - KuffinsUniverse

"Do you know what breakfast cereal is made of? It's made of all those little curly wooden shavings you find in pencil sharpeners!"

~ Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

KuffinsUniverse is a DeviantArtist from the United States that had a fun YCH of your character eating cereal and enough fun samples of characters to know it would be delicious.  

That's a bowl of Nozzle-O's, fortified with vitamins B and Q.

July 8 - Windsock

“Listen to the wind, it talks. Listen to the silence, it speaks. Listen to your heart, it knows.”

~ Native American Proverb

Drills you run on a team, finger exercises for an instrument, it doesn't matter the discipline - they all start with a series of practice exercises designed to help train your mind and muscle memory.  I was told at one point as a kid that a ninja had string and unstring his bow 10000 times before he was allowed to pick up an arrow.

Chun-Lin, Sung taught a good number of weaving lessons in his Hahow series and just recently released a new one on distortion (available here).   I was looking back through some images and realized I hadn't shared one of his practice pieces from his weaving series.

Practice, practice, .... practice x 10000!

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Other balloons by and inspired by the Mr. Sung:

July 7 - Box Chain

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.”

~ Heraclitus

There is a certain ... mathematical satisfaction(?) that comes with building a weave or a repeated pattern.  It speaks to my inner nerd, and this balloon was a bit of a research project.

I followed a set of instructions I found for weaving a box chain and built a few of them using the similar sized rings to the jewelry (Lagenda 1.6), but I never really felt things were right - constantly adjusting to expose the pattern only to have one thing fall out of shape.

Isopresso recently released a tutorial on a balloon box chain so I tried then following his instructions and figured out where I was going wrong.  Firstly his box chain was slightly different in that it uses three rings, but more significantly - he sized things properly (L1.0) so that they would fit snugly - you could throw this thing like a football.

Made a rainbow -- I really need to level up my color combo skill if I'm going to make more patterns...

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Other balloons inspired by Isopresso:

July 6 - Jewelry

Who will save your soul when it comes to the flower?
Who will save your soul after all the lies that you told, boy?
Who will save your soul if you won't save your own?

~ Jewel, Who Will Save Your Soul?

While looking around at Celtic chain patterns I saw a piece of jewelry made up of links that looked like it would be a fun exercise.

... and it was, up until the final 10-15 minutes of minor tweaks and adjustments to try and get some symmetry (and I see more places I want to smoosh around).    These are the kind of things you would avoid if you made this with actual metal rings ... or balloon nozzles .. hmmmm ....