52 Thread, One A Week

[Graham Lee]

Then the hound dog which when I purchased the tape I struggled with the technique to make this, I made two tonight with no problem at all.
The frog below which is still a one balloon is the one I went over to use as the frog Ralph explained on the tape does have a lot of pressure on the balloon and if needing to work quickly
I found that I did pop the odd one now and again but this may have been because of me and not the technique. The frog and dog are made using the same technique.

[Graham Lee]

I started to watch Paul Bellanger' tape on Slim Jim balloons but have stopped half way through so will finish this off tomorrow and perhaps even get onto tape three for this
weekend as I need to catch up a bit if I'm going to make the 52 for the year.

[Graham Lee]

Number 23

Paul Belanger, Dare to be different.

This tape which again has no date when produced covers Slim Jims and Worker balloons, the slim jims come in size 760 and 760S the "S" is for prestretched when they have latex paint added to them to add extra colour unlike the 760 which is just a solid colour.
Paul also talks about the worker balloon which is a 49S. On the slim jim the 760 i@m guessing is 7" diameter and 60" length. As I did not have any of these I used a 646 to make up the bazooka.

On the tape were described linking balloons, games, wreath, palm trees, Bazooka, caterpillar, snake, dragonfly, insects, hats, fish, piranha, snake charmer, jungle tree hat, alien hat, crazy antenna basket case and a super snooz.

I have to say I was very dis-appointed with the tape, it was shot at super miles away and what did not help is that Paul is not the tallest of person so this made it even worse. Paul's head was about in the centre of the TV screen on the horizontal and should have been right at the top. I could not see any of the small add on details made from 260 and 280 balloons. When he talked about pop twists if no one knew what they were the video would not have been any help.
I actually got annoyed watching this tape so will leave it at what I have said already but it did seem to be a case of just using the larger balloon in place of a 260/280 and Paul showed the indian feather hat made from the super slim jim. Also explained was a palm tree with the slim jim as a trunk and then 260's for the leaves and just a one balloon monkey made form a 260 wrapped around the slim jim so proportion and scale was all wrong. I could go on and on but enough said.

The bazooka as made from the instructions on the tape, Paul's bazooka was a lot longer as he used the 60" slim jim and I had a 646.
The first picture is the bazooka and then Paul put a slight bend in the middle and said everyone would know what it was meant to be,
I personally think not so we will see if anyone can guess what the second picture is meant to be, competition time.

The bazooka had a tulip twist at the end and it was explained this was to make it more authentic but then Paul added the handles on and the tulip twist was always kept at the wrong end for the rest of the explanations. You are meant to put your arm through the loop and hold onto the single handle at the front. So if you are making this I would have the handles the other way around so that the tilip twist is at the front, I did tie the tulip twist into place as there is a lot of pressure on the 646 and I think it would pop out to easy if not tied in place.

[Graham Lee]

I then had a go at making a bazooka with sight, fire trigger, kick stand etc, probably a little to complicated for the real world but I think I will work on a happy medium between the two later as I think the boys may well like this. I need to road test this with Harry and Zakh to see how the react to it.
I think the gun may look better with a 12" round balloon tulip twisted and tied onto the 646 to give a more bulbous look and feel.

[Graham Lee]

A few variations on the bazooka, not sure if the legs on the gun look right? I made the blush one as that is all I had open in the 12" round balloons.
The second picture is with a 350 and 260 with 160 legs, if you took the legs of it's just a 3 balloon bazooka for the real world.

[Graham Lee]

Last one then I'm off to view another tape/DVD but not decided yet which one to look at.

[Graham Lee]

Number 24

Balloon-gineering Volume 3 from balloon animals to balloon sculptures. Royal & Patty Sorell

There is a good selection on the tape that was produced in 1997 so some 14 years ago.

On the tape was, Poodles, Swan, Sword, Lion, Monkey + Tree, Hugging Bears, Base, Bow and Arrow, Fish and Rod, Flower, Ladybug, Bee, Large Flower.

Machine Gun, 2 Road Runners, Bunny, Tweety, Pink Panther, Bike and Stork. Also seen on the tape and not shown were Starship Enterprise and a Superman.

The base for the hugging bears was a simple and very effective way to make any sculpture stand up for a display, I liked the Swans in a heart and Poodles kissing and the Rabbit reminded me of Dennis's so I was able to make far bigger ears and still only use 4 balloons for Dennis's rabbit which was an added bonus. The rabbit shown by Royal only uses 3 balloons. I think the idea of the tape was to ad value to the models/sculptures you already knew by adding perceived value with additional balloons. I enjoyed this tape as I was up and making some of the models while it was still running which is a good sign for me of getting some additional ideas to try out.

The second section of the tape from the machine gun onwards I felt could have been slowed down a little as it was difficult to keep up and the twists could have been shown more clearly to camera if this section was not so rushed, still there is always the rewind button.

I did add a pinch twist in between the kissing poodles which was not on the tape so that the poodles sat nicer and also two pinch twists at the base of the heart with the swans which again was not on the tape, it made the heart sit nicer.

[Graham Lee]

So another variation on Dennis's & Royal's rabbits was produced and I varied the look with the 260 coming over between the eyes, made it easier to make without this and gave slightly smaller ears which I thought were more in keeping with the model and also just 4 balloons.
I put a 260 heart around the poodles as I think I would use this like this and not with a 6" heart. More of a cute factor I think.

[Graham Lee]

Number 25

John "The Balloon Man" Holmes  Something for everyone

I bought John Holmes full set of DVD's from ebay when Rhino was trying to raise some funds for John 2/3 years back, I watched one quickly and the rest have been sitting on my bookcase gathering dust ever since. I bought 13 DVD's for I believe $100 so an absolute bargain. Some are original DVD's but there are some that have been copied from tapes so the quality is a little blurry but still viewable and usable.

Something for everyone was produced in 2007 and was produced as a DVD so the quality is excellent, shown were; Banana, Lady Bug, Ginger Bread Man, (I think this must be an American thing as I have seen a few ginger bread men explained on other tapes/DVD's) Scorpion, Woodpecker Hat, Bull Frog, Elephant and Motorbike Chopper.
The banana I've seen elsewhere but John made it from 321's so that scale wise it would work for a one balloon monkey. I decided to make the Banana and then up-sized it for a monkey hat made from four balloons. I also made the chopper which was fairly quick for a first time effort and then made a few minor adjustments with the second effort.

The Banana and Bike as described on the DVD.

[Graham Lee]

I then made the banana from a 646/160 and pushed the 160 inside the 646 before inflating and just used the nipple end as I wanted to lose the knot at the top of the banana.
I could have just inflated the 160 and then slid the 646 over the top, no need for cutting extra holes and inserting the balloons inside each other.

The bike had a few empty spaces, the front and rear wheels did not have any middle and the engine compartment looked bare. Just by turning the heart around filled the engine compartment but I still liked the look of the round 11" gold which had two raisen  fixing points. I also added filler to both wheels and modified the seats for the bike with a couple of other minor changes.
I enjoyed making these today.

The Mokey was made to wear as a hat and the bike picture just has the heart turned over to fill the engine space.

[Graham Lee]

I then re-made the bike adding a few extras;

[Graham Lee]

Number 26

Half way through but eight months into the year, oops! Still never mind I'll keep plodding along.

Twisted Toppers, Stretch The Balloon Dude

On this DVD from July 2006 are an Airplane, Alien Bug 1 & 2, Alien Elephant, Arch Heart, Arrow Thru Head, Cow, Crazy Fan, Electric Shock, Eyeball, Side Double Eye,
Top Double Eye, Flying Antenna, Funky Jester, Princess Crown, Silly Bug 1 & 2, Cowboy, Fire-fighter, Alligator Mask, Witch Mask and a Dragon Mask.

The Aeroplane and Crazy fan for me were the pick, the Crazy fan being a fun head from an 11" balloon and put onto a hat and the Aeroplane hat or on a stick I think is 100% usable especially in the real world situation.

I think this DVD falls into the same ideas as the Balloon Utopia tape I have with many crazy design hats rather than a specific product, i.e a Giraffe Hat, a Sheep hat etc etc.

The plane is as described on the DVD,
it may work nicely as just to hold the 260 which makes the head and then the children could fly the plane about while doing some red arrow type stunts.

[Graham Lee]

I did make a couple of variations but think the original does the job best as it's a basic interactive balloon if held and as they say less is more.
I shaped the wings and tail plane and added a seperate balloon for the head.

I also vaguely remember years ago making a one balloon clown with a similar head design, those that add good artwork made this an excellent model but with just the basic features from myself I think it's a bit lacking. It was a bit of a memory jogger though.

[Graham Lee]

Number 27

Rick Mohr, Cornering the hat market with the triangle hat. The DVD was produced in 2003

There are some 14 different hat designs shown with the Heart Tat, Teddy Bear Rainbow, Crab Hat and Lobster hat taking my liking, also featured were, Jester Hat, Weather Vane, Cheese Hat, Piece of Cake, Horse/Unicorn Hat, Chicken Hat, Rooster Hat, Globe Hat, Fireman Hat and Tricycle Hat.
I did wonder if Rick has used the models in the real world just by the way he made and explained things, just a feeling I got so may be wrong
I liked the idea that Rick never spoke on the DVD when making any of the hats but did a voice over which eliminated all the talking with squeaking going on. There was also some soft music being played while he did the voice over, I expect this may have got on some people's nerves especially if they did not like the chosen music.
Rick does give credit that Ed Chee came up with the design for the triangular hat and the DVD was made with his permission.

The crab hat made as explained on the DVD except for I added a double pinch twist so that the wibbly wobbly 260 would sit better, I forgot to trim the knots as well  
I thought the Crab hat looked a little Lobster like and on the DVD Rick does add to the Crab hat to turn it into his Lobster hat.

[Graham Lee]

There seemed to be a large gap between the 260 so I added some eyes to fill the space and to add some character to the model.
Made a variation without the triangle base.
The orange crab hat is one I have been making for a while although I did alter the eye position from normal and think thay look nicer, it's also adjustable.