By continuing your browsing, you accept the deposit of third-party cookies used to personalize your visit and establish statistics.

Hmm... more info please?

Balloon Twisting From Scratch 8 - Skill 3: How To Curve A Balloon

This is a review of a very simple technique: how to give a curve to a segment of balloon.

We first came across this technique while shaping the tail of the dog in our very first lesson.

This technique will enable you to give a more natural shape to many of your sculptures. For example, to reproduce the rounded shape of a stomach on dogs, teddy bears or penguins, or the curve of a flower's stem, of a sword's blade, etc.

We will go a bit further and you'll also learn how to make a spiral very simply (other methods exist but we'll see them later as they're a bit more complex). Spiral-shaped balloons can be used for a snake's body, to form the tail of the Marsupilami, or even to brighten up the suspension of a motor vehicle!

 

Video Tutorial

Video in French, with English subtitles

Click to toggle on display

+ - Video transcript: Balloon Twisting From Scratch 8 - Skill 3: How To Curve A Balloon Click to collapse

Hello, nice to see you again!

This time I'd like to work on curves; making curves with balloons!

All you have to do is rub the balloon against itself like this, gradually moving on until the balloon has done a full rotation.

This gives us a circle.

To get a spiral, the process is almost the same.

As we did for the circle, you rub the balloon against itself, but this time, don't let go of the balloon just yet, it has to keep the shape of a tense spring, while you keep turning it around itself.

Then, you take both ends of the balloon and pull them away from each other, Then, very gently, let go!

So, there you go, practice making your own spirals and circles.

And see you soon, for another lesson with Mossieur Ballon!

 

Step-By-Step Photo Guide

 

1- Take a balloon in both hands and bend it, near the knot.
2- Rub both segments against each other to move the crease downwards,
3- then upwards, several times.
4- Keep going back and forth, all the while guiding the balloon, and therefore the crease where the friction is taking place, forward between your hands
5- Little by little the balloon knot will move away from your support hand
6- The idea is to make the whole inflated portion of balloon go through this movement of friction made by your hands,
7- until the deflated tail end of the balloon reaches your twisting hand.
8- With this method, you can get an almost perfect circle.
9- To get a loop, the operation is almost identical, except that you shouldn't let go of the part of balloon that is passing through this hand movement.
10- You need to keep it compressed in a spiral shape as you gradually work on the whole length of balloon.
11- If it's too difficult to keep the spiral compressed only with your support hand, you can use another part of your body to help yourself (as seen in the video).
12- Once the whole length of the balloon is compressed in the shape of a spiral, firmly hold both ends of the spiral in each of your hands,
13- and gently pull each end as far apart from the other as you can, then let go just as gently.
14- Once released, the balloon will keep its spiral shape.

And that was the end of this lesson!

 

Document pdf Download the PDF guide sheet with detailed photos of each step