The underlying structure, drawings, and special effects

As with any large scale creation involving multiple workers, a diagram of the final structure can be a handy tool. Sadly, one of my greatest weaknesses is the lack of any real drawing skill. My art is balloons. In fact, I think of a balloon as a paintbrush. I find it much easier to create with balloons than a pencil. When I do drawings of my smaller sculptures as teaching tools for others, it's only after I've already twisted the figure. I then work with a figure in front of me as I put it into two dimensional form.

I've never before worked with someone else in creating a huge balloon sculpture. I've always done it myself. I often work with constraints in mind, and as I sculpt, I shape things and modify my plan in order to make it work and make it look as good as possible. However, I had up to two dozen people working at once on this project. There was no way for me to do it myself, even if that's what I had been hired to do. What's more, I couldn't coach each person individually through the whole thing. Had I found a way to be in more than one place at time, there still would have been the language barrier. Clearly drawings were essential.

To top it all off, I was asked to send drawings a couple weeks ahead of time to make sure that my vision was the same as that of the television people. With some drawings of traditional nebuta sculptures to work from, I set out to draw my own. It was good that they asked since my understanding of what they wanted wasn't quite right. The hard part was in showign them what I wanted to do. I would have greatly preferred someone else giving me a drawing and telling me which things were important and which things allowed for my creativity. Regardless, I got through it.

Typically, I don't work with framing materials, but there were several reasons for using a framework of some sort here. The frame wasn't actually necessary in the end, which was my preference, but the insurance it provided was well worth having.