Balloon Chat
Uncategorized Boards => Balloon Chit Chat => Topic started by: Graham Lee on May 26, 2008, 06:45:39 PM
On a wet & windy bank holiday I thought I'd attempt a bike so looking through some old pictures came across one that John Holmes made at TMJ a couple of years ago.
Just thought I'd try & explain the thought process in the attempt of a design which to be honest is not one of my strong points as I always have to have a starting point. Without the picture of John Holmes bike I would struggle to even attempt the bike.
In my opinion Thelma Levett, Mark Byrne, Ken Stillman & Patrick van de Ven are excellent at designing balloon art, so I'm hoping they along with others may try & show/explain what is involved in creating the design so that everyone perhaps will attemt to make something from scratch.
The blue bike is John's which has a heart as the petrol tank & the second picture is my first attempt with two hearts joined together for the tank;
The problem with my first effort is that I thought the front wheel stuck out to far & the bike sloped down at the front, so if I just put a 360 on as the front tyre this would solve the problem.
I think no was the answer as the engine box area was now too high and small & the bike didn't look bulky enough to me.
So the second picture is attempt three with a larger engine area and the front wheel not sticking out so far;
To fill the engine area would make it even more bulky which I did, I think it would have looked better with the 360's being in silver or grey.
Then just added the the kick stand for the lean effect which I always think looks good for the look of the bike. The above shot shows the style of the tank etc with the two hearts just incase someone wanted to make it or even improve on the look as the bike has no exhaust as yet either or come to that lights, winkers etc, etc.
Reasonable pleased with the look of the bike at the moment but I'm sure it could be improved upon by even streamlining the look as sometimes less is more.
So there goes three hours of my wet bank holiday Monday, I think I may need to get a life really :D And the overall look of the bike in my opinion is no improvement on what was a great original bike by John Holmes.
Graham Lee
very nice, id like to make a motor bike. Ive got quite a few pics which i hope to glean parts from. I agree about the silver. Just a mention...would it have looked better if you could incorporate another colour, say a red and black bike with silver engine?
Your last pic was the best, i could see it was getting more and more realistic looking. 8-)
They are excellent. If I had the confidence I would have a go.
Your comment on the 1st bike having too much out front was right yet wrong, it was fine for a 'custom' job and you could even have made the front wheel smaller and made it more 'rad'.
I do like the last one as well, it is definately looking real.
As ever Graham superb work
Here is my bike from many years ago....
Mark,
Was that the prototype or if not how many attempts did it take until you were happy with the design. How does your thought process work when coming up with new sculptures?
I believe you came into twisting from being a graphic designer which must help enormously, this is the way David Grist came into twisting & he always used to say that if you can visualise something in your head you can then twist it with balloons.
Graham Lee
This motorbike was created over 10 years ago. Pre internet balloons or at least my knowledge of anyone else doing things like this.
It came from a basic concept, how do I tell people I do balloons like no-one else? Quite often when I worked (and work still) the same phrase would come up. "You are really bad with those balloons" I hoped they meant it as a compliment.
I wanted to illustrate this best I could. So I thought "what would be the two most diametrically opposed images I could merge together? Lorenzo Lamas and balloons!! For a visual go here:
http://imagecache2.allposters.com/image ... osters.jpg (http://imagecache2.allposters.com/images/pic/54/039_19583~Lorenzo-Lamas-Posters.jpg)
AND
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/185/4122 ... e9.jpg?v=0 (http://farm1.static.flickr.com/185/412284523_4c58129ee9.jpg?v=0)
As for the motorcycles structure.. I went to a bike shop and studied them. I measured a few too. Tires were my biggest problem. My very first one the tires popped when I place it on the ground ....DUH!! Now I use 30 inch children's swim rings. Problems I have run into the stress put onto a braid is a little to much as a reliability factor. Structurally it works well.
I come from 2 disciplines that I think help quite a bit. Graphic Arts and Stand-up Comedy. Both I think greatly help me to create.
They are seriously 'bad' bikes. I have lots of old friends who are into bikes in a big way, hope one day I get good enough to try something like that.
Awesome :D :D :D
Quote from: "Bad to the Balloon"I wanted to illustrate this best I could. So I thought "what would be the two most diametrically opposed images I could merge together? Lorenzo Lamas and balloons!! For a visual go here:
http://imagecache2.allposters.com/image ... osters.jpg (http://imagecache2.allposters.com/images/pic/54/039_19583~Lorenzo-Lamas-Posters.jpg)
AND
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/185/4122 ... e9.jpg?v=0 (http://farm1.static.flickr.com/185/412284523_4c58129ee9.jpg?v=0)
Mark,
I'm afraid you lost me on the above quote, what were you trying to compare?
Graham Lee
Quote from: "Graham Lee"Quote from: "Bad to the Balloon"Mark,
I'm afraid you lost me on the above quote, what were you trying to compare?
Graham Lee
The imagery of our industry is on par with Star Trek convention goers. Nerd, geek, doofus, "special" etc...
If your in general conversation with "bloogles" (non-balloon people - creatively stolen from JK Rowling) They think you either fly in them or have a strange fetish. Twisting balloon into art does not come to mind.
I wanted to create an image for myself that expressed my performance style and and sense of humor. I thought a biker and balloon artist meld would be funny and ironic.
Thing are changing though ... the balloon dress e-mail has changed many peoples thoughts.
Ahhh the balloon dress, one dreams of being that adept. One day...just one day...
Hi Mark, loved your video "bad to the balloon" very funny, watched it loads of times, the old man in the cafe is hilarious.
I too have aspirations of making a detailed life sized motorbike and am currently checking out the shapes of the engine parts. I was thinking if i applied hi float both inside and out or even stuck adhesive felt to the bottom of a pair of black donuts, so they wouldnt pop?
Then i could twist a wheel hub in silver ?
I could be a 53 year old biker chick hee hee
just my two penneth worth, ooopth ive developed a lithp :)
Well again I had nothing better to do today, well to be honest I have but I saw Billy's bike that he posted today & fancied having a go, well what a disaster that turned out to be :o
The link to billy's bike;
http://www.balloonchat.co.uk/viewtopic. ... 63&start=0 (http://www.balloonchat.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=263&start=0)
To me it looks like yhe back tyre & body of the bike is done with a 660 with two 5" link-o-loons in the middle of the back tyre, so the first problem was that I didn't have any 660.
To me my attempt looks like an old vintage bike of the 1900/20's, so not too impressed with this effort.
So while making the second attempt which again was a bit of a disaster, cant post this one as a part of it popped and I eventually turned it into attempt three. So as it popped I left it & went onto a different design;
The petrol tank on a bike should go up towards the handle bars from the seat but on this version went down.
The green seat area with the three bubble roll through would look better if it was in black with the mudguard that's in mocha was also done in black to blend in & be part of the seat.
I wasn't too impressed with the back wheel arrangement with the mocha going over & around the back tyre.
The next attempt with the blue tank the back wheel was in my opinion a lot better even slightly looking like that on a bike. The seat was better although the mocha pinchtwist in front of the seat should have been in black as well. But the petrol tank still went upwards from the handlebars.
So onto the next attempt; The seat looked OK on this one and the bike look different depending on what way round the front spokes sat. The tank & body still didn't go to the shape I was looking for.
So by changing the size of the bubbles from the joint between the tank & the body of the bike to the bottom of the engine I ended up with a shape that I was happy with.
Have posted the two finished versions with the front spokes sat differently;
So off I went back to look at the bike I started off trying to emulate (OK copy :lol: )
The one that popped earlier, I liked the look of the roll through effect on the grenn bodied bike so tried to do a variation with Billy's bike, I think it looks shiek.
A good old fashioned hell's angels chopper bike & I'm very pleased with the look of the back wheel, so if the second attempt hadn't popped I might never have got to the finished version of the bike, sometimes life is strange.
I also very much like the look of the front forks as well, although perhaps the engine does still need a little bit of work on.
So this is how I spent my day bike building :lol: :roll:
Graham Lee