Balloon Chat
Uncategorized Boards => Balloon Review => Topic started by: Signeddiamond on March 12, 2013, 11:33:23 PM
I'm sure most of us have read Nippys review of 1FIVEZERO. This book was surrounded by hype. Full of highly recognizable characters that get more popular with every sequel that they pop out. A irresistible claim that most twisters would love to get their hands on. I personally don't really buy instructional media but even I was tempted.
After reading through Nippys review which admittedly got even more funny with every post featuring his frustration with the god awful quality. After he threw in the towel and gave it an E rating I sent him a message. Send me the book. I will finish it.
It sounded like fun and a bit of an interesting side project. Surely it couldn't be that bad. Perhaps just a language barrier...
Just got it today so let the Re-Review begin!
Dylan
I'm looking forward to this.
So am I!
I was so certain that this book was the worse one ever written that I posted it from the UK to the USA just to show Dylan.
Bring it on :-)
Blue Little Monster:
I read Nippys review for this one and was horrified with the resulting balloon. There is no way an twister would actually have the nerve to pass that thing off to the public. So I gave it a go.
First off the instructions were worse then I had been lead to believe. When I first opened the packaging I was interested to see how thin the book was. All these complex sculptures and yet it is no thicker then a quarter inch. Soon it became apparent. There are 16 to 20 images crammed on each page. I had a hard time starting off. Bubbles kept changing sizes in the pictures. I then realized that the pictures had been squashed and poorly re-sized to fit the page. everything was warped to a degree.
Well perhaps the written stuff is better?
Ha. A solid block of text explaining the whole page. No attempt at punctuation for the sake of ease of reading. It was hard to look at and hard to find your spot after looking away. The actual instruction itself was passable. Poor english and an obvious attempt to use as few words as possible.
I hammered through and the result!
(//http://img841.imageshack.us/img841/9384/canvasgk.png) (//http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/841/canvasgk.png/)
It looks ok. I think my wife summed it up best when she said, "Why did you make that dog out of blue?"
I noticed that the Kit List for this sculpture was so wrong that they must have mixed them up in the book. It says you will need 32 pale blue 260s. 3 pale blue 160s needed huh? How about 7!
I don't know who counted but they were so incredibly off I find it hard to believe. Some colors are over listed while some are not shown at all. A failure of a kit list!
Now I have to give nippy credit here. His looks awful compared to mine BUT he followed the directions to a T. If anyone followed the instructions exactly, his result is the only one you could come to. Below is literally what is depicted in the book.
(//http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/9278/canvas2h.png) (//http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/442/canvas2h.png/)
A real slap in the face to anyone who saw the original teaser. Not the same. They couldn't even bother to make sure the eyes faced the same way...
I took some time and carefully positioned everything. I added nothing that was not in the instructions but did take more care to positioning then they did.
I am not known for my practicality. In fact I love designs that use an odd twist to achieve something simple but in the end it has to look good. Above all else the look is important. Here we have a difficult sculpture that does not deliver when it comes to looks. Perhaps the next one will be better?*
*(no)
Dylan Gelinas
Dylan - you call yourself a balloon artist with that shameful effort! Your final result looks nothing like the sneak preview upon which I bought the book... you must be following the instructions wrong. :lol:
[attachment=0:27ye3emv][/attachment]Content_Page_Preview.jpg[/attachment:27ye3emv]
On a serious note, you did a great job. I gave up on my Sully which is why he looks like he is slumped in the corner. The 'Mikey' character isn't too bad. I can't wait to see the old granddad from the movie 'Up' - are you any good at making a pair of glasses out of cardboard :o
Quote from: "nippy99"On a serious note, you did a great job. I gave up on my Sully which is why he looks like he is slumped in the corner. The 'Mikey' character isn't too bad. I can't wait to see the old granddad from the movie 'Up' - are you any good at making a pair of glasses out of cardboard :o
I don't blame you for giving up on this one. As soon as I saw the claws I thought, "are you really going to make me go through this? It doesn't even look that great!"
Oh did I mention, NO TAIL!
Dylan Gelinas
I am so glad Darren does these reviews, or I would probably have wasted money I could have better spent on this.
I had a Monsters Inc delivery piece to do for a birthday, and so had a reason to buy the book, for the Sully character, and to have the others in my "arsenal".
Thank goodness the review came out first....thank you Darren, you saved me some cash there, I owe you a beer when we get to meet up !!!
This is what I came up with without the book :D
The more I read about 1fivezero the more I feel the need to buy it (not), these reviews are very useful so thanks to both nippy99 and Signeddiamond for doing them for us.
Signeddiamond - your attempt at sully looks pretty good taking into account the problems you seemed to have so well done.
I was interested to see the original review to compare, if anyone else is, 048-1fivezero-book-aaron-chee-progress-t5750.html?hilit=1FIVEZERO (http://balloonchat.co.uk/048-1fivezero-book-aaron-chee-progress-t5750.html?hilit=1FIVEZERO)
My hunch was right: the content is as horrible as Aaron Chee's business.
post42482.html#p42482 (http://balloonchat.co.uk/post42482.html#p42482)
Nice Reviews as always!!
Item number two on the block!
Mikey Monster.
This is an obvious improvement on the previous design. It at least would pass the what is it test. The instructions were the exact same horrible quality but from it came an identifiable character.
(//http://img708.imageshack.us/img708/1242/dscn0915vo.jpg) (//http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/708/dscn0915vo.jpg/)
The horns are hidden in this picture but I think you get the idea.
The first big flaw with the design was noticed as soon as I made the hands. Following the instructions it was incredibly apparent that they were far to big. I watched this movie as a kid and I know that his hands are not the same size as his body. Perhaps this was done for the sake of novelty or to make him seem more goofy but my impression was that the design was a Frankenstein. They just had a regular hand design and just slapped it onto the arms and legs. No need to make them fit the character.
Now if the body were a 350 then perhaps this would work but as it stands it looks just strange.
The legs were very strange. This "TA DA" pose was the only one I could think of that made him seem ok.
It really is a shame. This is not something I consider a difficult character and with only a few tweaks it could have been great. Unfortunately it fails to be what was advertised... To the untrained eye it may seem like what you see is what you get but I have flipped through this book closely. Every completed design pictured is different then the design taught. Nothing completely radical but its the little things. Strange because some of the things pictured look great. Why go back and teach them to look awful?
The final verdict for this design, If you can see the potential here and are willing to do your own work on it then I suppose it is ok. Then again if you have such ability you should already have your own design that blows this one away.
Dylan Gelinas