The pumpkin carving thread...

[sfam]

Here's another one if interested - a Star Wars Death Star sculpt on a 77 pound pumpkin:

[Toetag]

Are those your patterns that you made?

[sfam]

Originally Posted by Toetag

Are those your patterns that you made?

The ones I've posted are pictures. I can post the patterns as well. Although with the Death Star, there really isn't a pattern, as the pumpkin is the pattern (although I do have a tutorial on another site that I can post here if anyone is interested in carving this).

But for instance, here's a Cherry Darling pumpkin from the Taratino/Rodriguez movie, Grindhouse:





Here's the original image:





Here's the pattern I made of it, after much digital massaging:





Here's the "inverted" look that many use to actually tape on the pumpkin to trace or glue the pattern:




The black color on the "inverted" look means you cut-through all the way. The gray means you skin the pumpkin, and the white areas you leave alone. Incidentally the "perspective" difference you see between the carving and the pattern is due to the pumpkin's roundness. The picture will look different depending on where I take it.


EDIT: But if you mean are the pumpkins I'm showing based on patterns I've made versus making pumpkins from others, yes, all so far have been mine with the exception of the castle, which I mention above is from an excellent pumpkin carver named Jamie.

[Frankie's Girl]

OMG!

I am an artist for a living, and I can't carve like that!

Awesome pumpkins!!!

[Toetag]

SWEET! can you make any picture a pattern? Like if a enough members wanted the same pattern would you make a few patterns for us to use?

[sfam]

Originally Posted by Toetag

SWEET! can you make any picture a pattern? Like if a enough members wanted the same pattern would you make a few patterns for us to use?

The short answer is "Yes, but...."

You can take any picture and posturize it into just three colors and use it for carving - assuming you don't leave any unconnected cut-throughs - but you really need decent contrast to make a picture work for a carving like that. Too often you get something that just won't work all that well.

That said, TONS of people on carvingpumpkins.com take just this approach. For my patterns though, I tend to spend a decent amount of time with them. Often I'm stuck with lots of grays that just won't work very well if I just went for three colors. So often I start off with 8-15 colors and slowly work my way down.

But yeah, if you want some patterns made, this should be easy enough. There are also TONS of patterns already made in the carving community. Unfortunately, with recent disney threats of lawsuits, now most people can't post them - instead they just email them to each other.

[sfam]

Originally Posted by Frankie's Girl

OMG!

I am an artist for a living, and I can't carve like that!

Awesome pumpkins!!!

Wow, that's an awesome compliment - thanks! For that I'll post my masterpiece for you:

I did this one in 2006. It took me about 23 hours to make the pattern and another 11 1/2 hours to carve it. I carved it nonstop starting around 11:30 at night or so. In all I made only 2-3 minor mistakes (this is like almost impossible). In truth, most of it was the most awesome 77 pound pumpkin - it was pretty much like carving on butter. The dragon itself is like 27 inches wide and like 14 inches tall if I remember correctly.










The detail in the face was insanely difficult to do. The original painting came from my favorite dragon artist, Ciruelo Cabral. This was his Dark Dsurion.

[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

[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.

[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