Halloween Pumpkins (2007 and up)

It's a tradition ever since 2006 to carve my own pumpkin and not in the traditional face way.

I like to challenge myself every year, hoping they'll be better and better.

Latest one; 2016:

I tried to do a dragon this year. It was quite a bit of work and not totally the shape I wanted, but I was restricted by the shape of the pumpkin.

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The first non-face-pumpkin was a haunted house and the year after something with a witch. There are no pictures of those (or maybe they are somewhere, but I don't have them). These were just basic cut out patterns, no play of colors what so ever.

The 3rd was a tiger face in 2008 of which I did take a picture of:

A tiger face when the pumpkin wasn't lit.

The lit version. The red you see is the candle inside.

With some help from internet I learned there were at least 3 colors to be achieved when you carve: 

• Black- Leave the skin.
• Dark orange: Carve only the skin away.
• Light orange: Carve all (flesh and skin)

There's another method where they carve the flesh out (leaving the skin) to create another darker tone of orange, but I haven't tried that yet.

For Halloween 2009 I chose a wolf pattern:

Unlit wolf pattern pumpkin

Lit wolf pattern pumpkin

 That year I did 2 pumpkins. At my moms work there was a colleague of hers who wanted to have a carved pumpkin as well.
Therefor I made a Gizmo from the Gremlins one:

Unlit Gizmo pumpkin

Lit Gizmo pumpkin

In the year 2010 I wanted something more difficult so I chose an owl.

Unlit owl

Lit owl

The owl was quite a bit of work, it's wing spreads across most of the side of the pumpkin. And due to all the white/ light colors in the picture I had to remove quite a bit, but leaving enough to keep the feather pattern standing.

 In 2011 I had to make one in a short amount of time, since I was carving together with someone else who did it for the first time, therefor needing a lot of assistance.
I did Remy the Rat from the movie Ratatouille.

The pictures of Remy seem to be missing. This is the only one I could find.

In 2012 I wanted to make something with a lot of detail. And that got to be Sackboy from Little Big Planet.

One of my old techniques were to make a printed copy and use some tracing paper to put the lines on the pumpkin. This didn't always work that well, because the ink of the paper wouldn't always transfer on the pumpkin. Instead I drew it directly on the pumpkin with a marker.
Normally I'd also use a small Stanley knife. But because of all the small parts I used a precision knife to be able to carve the woolly pattern out.

It took me several hours to carve. The Halloween party had already ended before I had finished.

Sackboy from Little Big Planet.
My camera had crashed shortly after Halloween.
Luckily this picture was already put on my computer.

Okay, so the wool pattern might not be as perfect as I'd liked it to be, but non the less it looks pretty awesome if I may say it myself.

2013 I apparently skipped a year.

In 2014 I went back to another elaborate/ crazy carving idea that took me hours to complete: This victorian pattern:

Not perfectly symmetric, but could be worse.

In 2015 I gave it my first attempt to do a 3D carving. This is a technique where you carve out a complete face from the pumpkin flesh, instead of carving all the way through.

This one doesn't have a top that comes off, therefor I couldn't put a candle inside. None the less it had some great decorational value.

My first attempt to do a 3D carving. Gollum turned out a bit too Smeagol for my liking (too friendly) ;)

Something completely different but still Halloween pumpkin related:

My paper mache Halloween pumpkin.

Pumpkin made from newspaper shreds and some carton.

 For this I used the techniques described by:
Stolloween Pumpkins

Check out their website; they have plenty of Halloween ideas you can make with paper mache.