My first inflatable mainly consisted of random small pieces that I cut out from the plastic bags. I tried to keep the color scheme random as well because I was going for the mosaic design feel. It was successful at first, but since the pieces were small, it became harder to tape the pieces together. In the beginning, I tried to make it so that tape is on the inside of the inflatables, but I realized that I have a royal blue colored tape and it would be nice to show that. This first inflatable had an end result of an asteroid or spaceship shape. It was intriguing to see how it turned out to be even though I struggled the most on this one.
I wanted to utilize more of the corner pieces of the plastic bags in my second inflatable. At this point, I already realized that bigger pieces will be easier to work with so all my cut-outs were big, random pieces. I started out with the two orange corners and taped the other pieces onto them. I also used a lot of cut-outs that w ere cut at the folded edge of the plastic bag to make symmetrical shaped (similar to how you can one cut a snowflake with paper). It was less time-consuming than the first inflatable. The main issue in this one was that corner pieces are hard to tape together as you have to alter them to a certain angle before you can apply tape. In addition, I ran out of my blue tape before I could finish it, so I had to use some green tape. This may have changed the aesthetic of the inflatable a little bit, but I think it still overall fits the mosaic feel. The end result looked like a pillow with lots of different colors.
My third inflatable was the least improvised piece. I had been experimenting with random shapes from the plastic bags in the previous two inflatables, so I decided to make something different: a longer inflatable with a star shape figure somehow. This “long shape with star” reminded me of my childhood times when I watched cartoons about magical girl protagonists who would use their magical wand to help solve the crimes around them. Inspired by that, I needed to figure out how to make a star. I searched up how to one cut a star, but since the plastic material is so slippery, it did not turn out to be great and took a couple of tries before I felt like the star pieces could fit with each other. Then it was the white part of the wand, which was originally supposed to be a wing shape, but that was too difficult and I decided to improvise that part. The bottom was just cylindrical with a smaller red cylinder shape. The hardest part of this inflatable was taping them together because there were so many creases and angles that tape could not entirely cover. Even now, air would escape quickly after I inflate it, so it would deflate almost immediately. As my friend says, the speed at which my wand deflates is how long my magic will last. 🙁