This Year's Post Garden Damage So guys, I just finished up this year's coin pumpkin. It's not nearly as good as last years but I wanted a challenge and, well, I got one. After an hour of cleaning it out and tracing the design onto it, and four hours of careful carving, here's this years masterpiece: the reverse of a Mercury Dime. I could not for the life of me figure out a way to get the intricate details into it, but I hope you enjoy it. I will try to get some better pics up tomorrow when I can get it outside in different lighting. Happy Halloween everybody!
Gotta give ya credit, that's one heck of a lot of work ! I don't think 1 person in a thousand will ever recognize it, but Boy Howdy you sure are dedicated !
Digging it! Good work, man. With a Dremel, using a very small bit, carve varying depths into the rind, without going all the way through. The deeper you carve, the lighter that area will appear when lit from inside. The shallower the darker.
Dang I wish I was that artistically talented. haha Art isn't my best subject and if I tried that it would probably come out looking worse haha. Although, this pumpkin would have worked great for that because it was insanely thick. Every pumpkin I carved this year was really really thick.
It's easier than you think Just go slow, and practice on some cheap small throwaway pumpkins to learn the touch. It's also helpful to draw or shade on the pumpkin before hand...or even print out an "actual size" drawing or image of your design, and tape it to the pumpkin. Then you can kinda say "ok...white is not carved, black is carved completely out, and everything in between is various depths...the darker the deeper." As a favorite author of mine with whom you're apparently familiar said... "Pick a nice day and try it."
I already tape the design to it. That's the only way I can get everything in the right places. And I just may sit down and try one next week or so. Pick up some marked down ones now that Halloween is over. And yes, quite familiar.
Cool, the exact same way they carve emu eggs then, huh? Those eggs are darkest at the surface, but progressively lighter the deeper you go. Chris
