How to Make a Balloon Diplodocus and a Balloon Velociraptor

Good morning ! Well, for this new tutorial of the year, I have prepared for you, like last time, not one but two tutorials!

I will teach you how to make two different dinosaurs, the first will be a diplodocus, the second will be a velociraptor, or at least something that looks like them.

So to do well with these two tutorials, you absolutely must master some basic balloon twisting techniques, you can't avoid it, so if you're not so sure, go watch these videos again: on control air pressure, on the pinch-twist bubbles, how to curve a twisting balloon, and how to make angles with twisting balloons.

That's really important, I say it every time! This is what will make the difference between a great job and a sloppy job. So preferably do a fine job, by curving shapes, making them look more natural... unlike plain straight... uh... ugly tubes!?

OK! Without further ado, here we go!

The first step is inflating the balloon. If needed, deflate it to leave exactly the width of an entire hand uninflated.

We tie the knot, and we pull on the knot a little, to have a little bit of slack just after the knot, and by pulling on it, see the air has entered the slack, which gives us a little more balloon volume.

What we need to do now is an S-shaped bubble which will be the long neck of the diplodocus.

So that's going to be the head. You see, it's the first part of the S that I'm going to hold in my hand, and I'm just going to make a little angle, at the top.

I'm still holding the first angle that I did, I'm still holding it in my hand, Same, it's always the same technique, it's important to hold the first angle in your hand, while you work on the other. Like that, and you release the two angles together gently.

And you can see now that you have your S shape. Then, at the base of the S, you will make your bubble.

So this is the head, the long neck, and the base of the neck. Now we are going to do the second step, which will be the two front legs.

So here it's easy, it's like the legs of the little dog, we're not going to make them too long, because you have to keep the balloon for all the other details, so two little legs, which you're going to tie together, lock-twist together.

Now we are going to do the belly. So for the belly it's going to be two bubbles, like the front legs, but a little bigger, a little longer, like that... more or less like that.

So two bubbles of the same size, which we lock together, like so. This is what you should have, it doesn't look too much like a dinosaur (yet).

So the bubble in S for the long neck and the head, the two small bubbles at the front, for the front legs and two small... actually, two bubbles a little longer for the belly, and, these two bubbles, see... we should be able to open them aside like that.

Now we will make a series of four bubbles... one...two...one, two...three...and four.

You will now have to force these four bubbles, through, which will form the back of the dinosaur, through the two bubbles which form the belly.

To do this, we approach the last bubble of the series, to the back of the belly, we turn everything over, and... then, I have to show you both sides, here you go, you put your 2 thumbs behind the last bubble, to secure it, you flip the balloon over, and you make the two big bubbles spin that way you spin them, while pushing the bubble (from the back), and, this movement is enough, each bubble, you push them with your thumb, and you turn the two large bubbles at the same time, and like that, without forcing, you see that the four bubbles have passed through quietly to the other side of the belly.

We pull back... we pull out the tail, and that's the shape you should have now.

Then, the first little bubble which is smaller than the others, we are going to transform it into a a pinch-twist, which makes it possible to solidify the base of the neck, the two front legs, the belly and the back. and now we're going to do the base of the neck, so the second angle of the S.

This is now the shape you should have.

Then we're going to do two back legs, which will be the same... the same size as the two front legs, so two bubbles, here I see I've got a lot of air, so I'm going to push some a little bit further, two bubbles, of the same size, which we will lock together at their base.

This is now the shape you should have.

And it's almost over, we just have to make a very small bubble that we're going to transform into a pinch-twist like this one and the rest of the balloon... the rest of the balloon will be the tail.

Here it is, now... everything is solid, we are going to give a more natural shape to the tail, in two movements, first we are going to force the air towards the base of the tail so that the tail is bigger at its base, and, we will refine it at its end, like a normal dinosaur tail, actually!

So, you just have to compress it thoroughly, being careful of course not to explode the balloon, so here you go, you press on it several times like that, and all the air gets compressed at the top, there you go, you see that already here, it looks a bit like a carrot, it's thicker here and less thick there.

And so we will continue to refine the tail, we pull like that, we give it a little rounded shape like that.

And here we have given a slightly more natural shape to our diplodocus which is finished, we will now be able to make a small drawing, a friendly face for our diplodocus!

(fast forward... his indistinct sound)

And here is our diplodocus!

Now let's move on to the velociraptor, and it's very simple, it's just a variation of the diplodocus, you'll see!

You have to inflate a balloon exactly like we did the first time, ie leaving the width of a hand that is not inflated, you make your knot, which you pull a little outwards, so that the balloon, at this level, can fill with air.

Same, we first make a big S, so like right away, we keep the top well, we make the angle, the neck will be shorter than the diplodocus, so you make a smaller S than you block, and you make your angle. Refer to the angle tutorials if necessary. You release slowly and here is the head of our velociraptor.

So, like we did before, two little front legs...

(fast forward... indistinct sound)

And here we're not doing the back legs, we're going to make another little bubble, like the first one, that we're going to transform into a pinch-twist, and here is the shape you should have, it's exactly like the diplodocus except that the neck is shorter, and it has no hind legs and therefore a longer tail.

We will now put it aside, and take the second balloon to make the hind legs.

Once it's inflated all the way, you're going to let it deflate a bit, to roughly get the same consistency, as the one you got with the butterfly wings, if you did this tutorial, or with the petals of the flower, so it's the same consistency, see, it has to be inflated all the way, but not too inflated, it has to be really quite supple and soft, let the air escape a little if necessary, like that, inflated all the way, but quite supple and soft.

So we tie the knot. OK there's a bit of slack there, so we're going to let the air go all the way,

You stretch it a little... so now we're going to take the beginning of the balloon, where there's the knot, and we're going to make the first hind leg, so here's the foot, so a big bubble for the foot. You need the bubble to be big enough, if you want the velociraptor to stand on its own, so you need a big enough base, here I made it as long as the width of a hand, followed by a little bubble that we transform into a pinch-twist.

You position the end of the ball next to the foot to measure it, and to make a bubble of the same size, followed by another small bubble, which will also be transformed into a pinch-twist. Here are the two velociraptor feet.

Now, again, we are going to take the balloon from the side of the knot, the side of the balloon that is a little more inflated than the other.

In addition, we do a little air pressure control, like that, to make sure that the air is evenly distributed over the entire length of the dinosaur's two feet.

We then divide the balloon in half and we make an angle there, once your angle is finished you will fold the ball in half, right in the middle of the angle, here you go, turn several times, your two feet are now formed.

We will assemble them with the rest of the dinosaur's body. Both feet should be slid between the belly and the last bubble of the dinosaur's back on one side, and between the tail and the pinch-twist on the other side.

To do that it's easy, we approach both side, we don't force, we turn, always, you turn, position it and you turn it like that, that's it... it's done.

Here, now we lock the two legs of the dinosaur together, so we take the two pinch-twists, and we lock them together.

Here it is not facing the right direction, we simply do a twist to put it back in place.

Then we will shape the knees of the dinosaur, so again, the technique of angles will be useful to us.

So we have to choose about a large third from the top, we bend and we hold both legs in our hand, and we make our two angles, and we release gently, and there we are going to curve the thighs, and curves the calves.

So we round the top of the thighs, the angle of the knees is perhaps a little too pronounced, we're going to open it a little, and we're going to curve the calves, like so!

We now have to form the tail of the dinosaur, so always the same we press on the end and we push the air, We push the air upwards, preferably without exploding it, and we refine the rest.

And here is our velociraptor, we are now going to draw on its face, a slightly more aggressive expression than for the dinosaur! So, I start with the eyebrows, with triangle eyes and big teeth!

And here is the horrible velociraptor!

Well that's all for today, I hope you enjoyed this tutorial, that it will be useful to you, that it will enable you to progress in your balloon twisting journey, or else, if you already are a balloon professional, that it has given you a new model that the children will enjoy during your next animation.

See you soon... for another lesson, with Môssieur Ballon!