If you were like most kids, you probably have a lovely memory of balloon animals. Your old balloon pal probably had a number of legs, maybe a tail, and something kind of like a head. Perhaps you were unsure what it was supposed to be, but chances are you liked it anyway. Unless, of course, it popped and freaked you out.
If you’ve always wondered exactly what the balloon animals handed out at parties and fairs are supposed to be, artist and designer Sarah DeRemer is here to fill in the blanks. DeRemer recently created some oddly realistic, and slightly unsettling, balloon animals of her own.
These aren’t actual, physical balloons, so much as carefully designed digital illustrations.
Each balloon animal is designed to have realistic “skin” and other features wrapped around it.
Before turning her attention to art, design, and photography, DeRemer worked as a veterinary technician, and also studied at UC Davis Veterinary School.
Her knowledge of animal anatomy is evident in her works, even as she distorts them for aesthetic interest.
These images are created using Photoshop, but they’re realistic enough to make you imagine how they might have been twisted into shape, and where the air pockets form the bulges of faces and bodies.
(via DesignBoom)
DeRemer’s work focuses on blending unlikely elements together to create a strange, surreal new world that makes us reconsider the realities of our own. You can see more of DeRemer’s artwork on her website, as well as on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and Instagram.
