How to Make a Balloon Snake

Hi! In this tutorial, I'd like to show you how to make a balloon snake. This newer model is fairly simple to carry out, and still... it's very lifelike. Just wait and see! For this, you'll need three modeling balloons. I've opted for two green balloons, for the body and the head, and one red balloon, for the eyes and tongue.

We're going to start by inflating the first green balloon, but not all the way to the tip. Leave a wide margin... it should be a lot longer than the width of your hand. Tie the knot, and press the rest of the balloon a bit, so that it's supple to work with. We're going to start by twisting a bubble, make it nice and round. And we're going to keep the bubble in place with two fingers, like this. We're going to measure out, roughly, about a fifth... we need five equal parts, so we're going to bend it to get five parts. And we're only going to use the first two...
the first two-fifths of the balloon, like this, to make a loop. So don't forget to keep pushing the air towards the tip of the balloon.

We are now going to twist a long sausage-shaped bubble, that should be the same length as the loop. Just after this sausage bubble, we're going to twist a small, round bubble. Then, we're going to bring the rest of the balloon back towards the first sausage bubble, which is going to allow us to twist a second sausage bubble, the same size as the first one. Press the two sausage bubbles together, at their shared base, and, twist.

There, now you have a loop on one side, and on the other side, two sausage bubbles and a little round bubble, following those. We are now going to turn this little bubble into a pinch-twist. There! Press the rest of the balloon again, to push the air forward. Make sure the sausage bubble is the same size as the loop, and the two other sausage bubbles, and tie a knot.

There we are! You should have something that looks like this. Here, we got lucky, because the rest of the balloon was just the right length. If it were too long, all you'd have to do is let a bit of air out (cut the tip then tie a knot).

Now, we can inflate the red balloon. But I don't want the balloon to start right there, at the nozzle. So I'm going to guide the air along with my fingers, so that the balloon's only inflated past a certain point. And tie a knot. You want the balloon to be about the length... in fact a bit wider... than the length of your hand. We're going to divide this big sausage bubble, into two smaller ones, of equal size, and, tie them together. Once the knot is done, we're going to take the tip of the balloon, which still has a bit of air left in it. And we're going to coil it up... we're going to feed it... through to the other side of the two bubbles, and pass it around the part where the two bubbles meet, to have it wedged in like this.

Now, back to the green balloon. What we're going to do is align the two red eyes with the two big, green, sausage bubbles. The side that's going to become the tongue needs to be facing the same way as the pinch-twist. Take the balloon knot, and, wedge it at the base of the green loop. Twist it around a few times. And, look, I've left a bit of a gap. It doesn't need to be too tight! Once we've done this, we're going to bring the red eyes close to the last sausage bubble, which has that last little bit of green balloon hanging at the end. And this time, we're going to tie a knot that's very tight. Take a pair of scissors, and cut off the excess green balloon, we won't need it anymore.

Next, we need to bring the eyes up close to the pinch-twist, take hold of the tongue, and wrap it around the pinch-twist. Once the tongue is attached to the pinch-twist... to the base of the pinch-twist... we're going to sharpen out the loop. Like in the tutorial on how form angles.

Now, we're going to lodge the last sausage bubble inside the loop. To do this, you need to go slowly, There... see... like this. And we're going to feed the pinch-twist through to the other side of the loop. And, of course, the tongue... we're going to pass it through as well, and lodge it in-between the base of the loop
and the pinch-twist. Like that!

Rearrange all the bits of balloon, to get the eyes bulging out on either side, and there we have it, the snake's head! Now let's move to the last green balloon which we're going to inflate all the way. But before you tie the knot, you need to let out a little air, so the balloon stays supple from nozzle to tip. Now tie the knot. So here we're going to tie both knots together. The knot for the snake's body, and the knot behind the small bubble, that stayed at the base of the snake's head.

If you have a bit of red balloon sticking out, you can hide it inside the head, or... cut it off, it's your call! Make the small bubble into a pinch-twist. Then twist a second bubble, that we're going to turn into another pinch-twist. These two pinch-twists will ensure that the body and head of the snake are solidely fastened together. They also enable us to direct the whole thing in whichever direction we want. For instance, like this, I can have a snake laid out flat, and like that, I can have the snake stick out its head. You decide what you prefer!

Next, we need to make zigzags in the snake's body. Here, my first zigzag is facing straight up, and the other ones are facing horizontally. And usually, I like to start with longer zigzags, and finish with shorter ones. I don't know if you've ever seen how a snake moves in waves, but often the waves tend to be a lot shorter,
towards the tail, than they are nearer the head.

Ok, that's all for today! So I'll say: See you soon... For another lesson... with Môssieur Ballon ! No! No! Not the fingers! Not the fingers, aghhh!!!!!