The pumpkin carving thread...

[sfam]

Originally Posted by TheGothicPrincess

I have a question, how long do your pumpkins last once they are carved? How do you keep them from rotting so soon?


I also wanted to jump in here and say awesome work... Keep the posts coming.

This question really depends on your climate. If you are down south, you obviously have a harder problem. I'm in the Northern VA area. Usually the tempurature stays around the 50s or so (give or take changes), but some days it certainly spikes. The first 6 pumpkins or so I do go in our secondary refrigerator. If the temperature is decent, I put the rest which are carved in the last week or so in my garage. I generally spread the carved area with patroleum jelly and then cover it with saran wrap. I will spray the inside with lysol to stop any fungus growth. If its hot outside, every day or so I'll spray water on the carved area (and sometimes the inside) to keep it from drying out. But usually this lasts well enough.

A fellow carver in Texas uses her bathtub and her mom's to store all her pumpkins as the day approaches. She just fills the tub with water.

But also, pumpkin selection is CRITICAL. Especially the last few years, most of the pumpkins have had issues due to the various droughts and infections.

EDIT: and thanks for the compliment!

Here's a carving of the game cover for Diablo II for you, although I used Brom's original painting vice the game cover to make most of the skeleton pattern:

[sfam]

Originally Posted by Toetag

I use GIMP image editor any idea how to posturize a image? or what do you use id like to take a stab at this. Any info would be great

There are bunches of threads on carvingpumpkins.com that go through this in detail - I'll find some of these and link them here, but generally, most programs allow you to do this. I bet the free online photoshop program that just went up does, for instance. But if you don't have a posturize option, you can also convert an image to a GIF and specify the number of colors. I usually use photoshop, but I know lots of others use paintshop pro and bunches of other programs.

[sfam]

Originally Posted by Dr. Z

WOAW! Awesome job Sfam! Teach me!
What kind of tools do you use for carving? Actually I bought this pumpkin carving kit with a pattern book, I guess I was 10/12 years old:



You'll probably find it very basic but when I bought it I felt like I found the Holy Graal!
Unfortunately I never found it again anywhere (you cannot imagine how difficult it is to purchase Halloween stuff in France!) and my tools are now half broken, half lost

Woodworking tools, baby! I use the Speedball Cutter set for my main thing:



You can get this at Michaels for around 10 bucks. They also sell it at lots of online stores. You also need the mini saw thing, but you can make this quite easily from hand saw blades if they don't sell any near you. But really, I have quite the collection at this point. For instance, I use clay sculpting tools when I want to do a pumpkin sculpt, such as this "Mars Attacks" pumpkin:

[mamawof2]

All I can say is if any of you were in our annual family pumpkin carving contest, none of the family would show up. WOW!!!! Fantastic carvings.

[Packrat]

Looks like this thread might really take off.Just wanted to stop by and say hello.Love the Pics you have posted,Started on any for this year yet?I'm still doing some for birthday presents and such. Keep the Dremel tool running cause Halloween is everyday

[Abunai]

SFam,

Is there a standard depth to which you carve to achieve the different shades, or do you have to carve with the pumpkin lit up inside to achieve the right depth/shade?

[Catzilla]

Thanks for the incredible photos !

[Madame Turlock]

What an awesome thread. I will find much inspiration here when it's time to do some carving this year. Thanks for posting!

[sfam]

Originally Posted by Abunai

SFam,

Is there a standard depth to which you carve to achieve the different shades, or do you have to carve with the pumpkin lit up inside to achieve the right depth/shade?

The "rule of thumb" is probably around a 1/2 inch deep, but really it depends on the actual pumpkin. Some are need to be thicker, and some thinner. I generally scrape out the back until I see some real visible movement in the front of the pumpkin (prior to carving), and then as I've skinned some of the non-tricky areas (those areas without lots of cut-throughs), I'll stick it in the bathroom with a candle in it and turn off the lights. This way you can see how much more you need to scrape. I always try to do my final touchups in a dark area - you almost have to if you want an even looking finish.

The other issue is that some pumpkins will have green veins in them. This carving below suffered from this (this most awesome moonfairy pattern comes from a carver named Sage). I got this thing "wafer-thin" but still couldn't get some of the shaved areas as clear as I want. Notice a number of the darker areas that have been shaved - in the daylight, all you see there are green veins.

[sfam]

Originally Posted by Packrat

Looks like this thread might really take off.Just wanted to stop by and say hello.Love the Pics you have posted,Started on any for this year yet?I'm still doing some for birthday presents and such. Keep the Dremel tool running cause Halloween is everyday

Hey Packrat - Howaya? Looks like I'm recruiting here! I found this really cool disney mug with a terrific pattern of Mickey and Chernabog - already in like a 4 color orange on black. I just need to figure out how to get it off the mug.

But no, I haven't done any pumpkins yet. I always plan to do some fake ones prior to the big day, but I never seem to get around to it. I have like 3 Michael's pumpkins just in case though. I generally seem to get around to about 2 fake ones a year. I usually make fake ones for patterns I'd previously carved on real pumpkins that get a great reaction, but which I don't really want to carve again. Maleficent from the first page fit that pattern this year, for instance, as did my Draco pattern (posted earlier), which I had already carved twice. Here's my "Funkin" version last year:




And we're looking forward to seeing some of your work here too.