Day 15: Mouse

Here is an intermediate level mouse design. I like this guy because he's got some character, and can be easily modified to be another animal. This can be a squirrel if you give it a different tail, or any number of other rodents with some simple modifications.

See you tomorrow.

Day 14: Zompocolypse

Day 14!
It's been two weeks of updates so far. This is good for me. Perhaps the daily update idea is working for me.
I know there have been a few late posts, but I'm doing my best to keep up with the challenge I set for myself.


Those of you that know me are well aware of my unhealthy obsession and irrational fear of Zombies.
Zombies are really the only monsters that scare me. I'm not bothered by many things actually, but for some reason a idea of a shambling corpse that wants to eat me alive really wigs me out.
Go figure.

I had the pleasure of doing some decorations right before Halloween for the North East Ohio Witches Ball.
The group was great, their event was a blast, and I was happy to help them with the decor.

Here is one of the pieces I built for them. They had a little cemetery built in one of the corners of the ballroom so I built them some fresh graves with zombie hands sticking out.

I confess that the design is not an original idea. I saw a picture of the same concept done by another very talented twister at some point and made a note to sit down and try it some day. I made mine smaller also, his was from 350's.

See you tomorrow.


(edit: I'm told that the twister that inspired this design goes by Stretch the Balloon Dude. I'm always happy to give credit where credit is due. If anyone reading this is in Stretch's area, check him out. He's great.)

Day 13: You want who now?

I'm sure many of you have encountered requests along these lines.
"Can you make Spongebob?"
"Can you make me an Optimus Prime?"
"Can you make a Batman?"

Once you get to the level when people are genuinely amazed by the quality of your work... To the point where they begin to realize that this can actually be an art form instead of just a way to distract their kids... That's when the hard requests start coming up a lot more often.

Not a gig goes by where I don't have to deal with the more complicated request. Sometimes you just don't have the time to make these characters because they simply take far to long to build.

Tonight I had one of my weekly kids nights, and it was a little slower than normal. Construction in the parking lot this week meant that I didn't have as many people coming in, and I was able to take my time with each table.

I respect the parents wishes that I not have any pictures of their kids posted on the site... so here is a picture of basically the same design I made tonight from a birthday party I did a few weeks back. There are a few minor differences, but they looked very much the same.

Sometimes it is nice to be able to take the time to stretch the creative muscles.

See you tomorrow.

Day 12: RAWR!

So, the dinosaurs went extinct millions of years ago... but not for kids.
When I was a little kid I loved dinosaurs, and that hasn't changed for kids these days either.
Nearly every restaurant kids night or birthday party I do I get a request for one type of dinosaur or another.
Here is my design for a rather simple T-Rex.
The T-Rex and the Brontosaurus are the two that I get asked for the most. This is a very basic design that can be whipped up in about a minuet and has always gotten a great response for me. I'm posting the basic design today, so I can hold onto the more advanced design for latter in the year if I need it.

See you tomorrow

Day 11: Stupid Internet

My internet was down again yesterday, so this post is a day late.

I apologize for that, I've complained to Time Warner a few times of the last couple weeks, and they don't seem to want to do anything about it.

Enough of my whining, here is something for you loyal readers.

An intermediate level balloon gun. It is similar to a revolver in appearance.

I confess that the original idea is not mine. I saw an image of this type of gun on a japonese website and decided I had to sit down a figure out how to make it.

Here is the original image that inspired me to make the video.

Here is the video of how to make my version of the gun.

Hope you liked it, and I'll see you tomorrow.

Day 10: Go Dora Go!

I now that isn't right, but I couldn't think of a good title.

Here are some pictures of the Dora and Diago balloons I made as a special order for a birthday party.
They are basically larger versions of my balloon character.
I had fun building backpack also.

See you tomorrow.

Day9: Make me a balloon! Hop to it!

I have tried 3 times to upload the instructional video for how to make this fun little balloon frog... for some reason Youtube is giving me trouble.
I will keep trying, or perhaps I will give uploading the video to the podcast a try.
If you have iTunes, and are interested in balloon twisting videos already formatted for your iPod so you can have them when you might need them, then do a search for "Balloonatic podcast" in the iTunes store and you'll find the content that I've uploaded so far.

This is a very basic balloon frog, it's not the most detailed design I use, but it's quick and has a lot of character for a simple request.

See you tomorrow.