Pumpkin carving

Does anyone else here do "custom" pumpkin carving? Here's a few I've done.

My first attempt at a portrait on a real pumpkin a couple years ago... This was from my daughter's school picture:



Love me some South Park!



These next two were done on fake pumpkins (the kind you get at Michael's and other craft stores). The dark line accross the middle is the seam and I have now used my dremel to shave it down some so it's not noticable now.







It's nice to carve the fake pumpkins because you can keep them pretty much forever. I've got the Family Guy and Vikings pumpkins in my home theatre now.

All very cool, the portrait is really amazing though.

cracked1 said:

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I would think being (almost) in Boise, you would be a BSU fan instead of the Vandals! Nice work.

Reelale said:

I would think being (almost) in Boise, you would be a BSU fan instead of the Vandals! Nice work.

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Nope... Minnesota Vikings. Half of my family is from Eau Claire Wisconsin which is only an hour and a half or so from Minneapolis/St. Paul.
BSU is my NCAA team.

Yeah, I didn't see the writing at first. Just noticed a slight similarity. Nice work though.

nice work

I am REALLY impressed with the one you did of your daughter. What a cutie-pie she is, too! No wonder you are inspired.

Bedlam said:

I am REALLY impressed with the one you did of your daughter. What a cutie-pie she is, too! No wonder you are inspired.

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The hard part of doing portraits is creating a pattern to work from. Making sure that when you make a cut you're not cutting out important pieces. Combine that with trying to keep shading in the right areas and it can be a PITA. Even though it was my first portrait attempt it sure was easier doing one of my own kid than any others have been since. That was when she was in 5th grade... Now she's a freshman with all the drama that goes with it... Still daddy's girl though.

If anyone is interested I learned how from here: http://pumpkinwizard.com/

Those pumpkins are really cool!

Nice work.

first...I would need artistic ability

cracked1 said:

The hard part of doing portraits is creating a pattern to work from.

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Yeah, because that is the hard part. I have trouble drawing a damn stick figure.

I did a Halflife 2 pumpkin a couple of years ago. I've done a couple of custom pumpkins the past couple of years but I only remember that one. I've never tried anything that would require "art skilz" though. I think carving pumpkins is a ton of fun, but the wife and kids only want to do traditional pumpkins. (yawn...)

I'm still thinking about what to carve this year. I agree the hard part for me is to take an image and photoshop it into a pattern. After you have the pattern, it's not too hard to do a good looking pumpkin as long as it's not too complicated.