2010 Pumpk-o-Lanterns!

It's my most favorite of holiday traditions, the ceremonial carving of the Halloween pumpkins. Every year I do at least two, and let the kids pick one for themselves. You might even remember last year's broken carving tool fiasco, which led to my Jason Voorhees pumpkin being just a tad uneven. This year's turned out better all around I think. This was the first year I decided to do the whole Exacto knife and not carve all the way through thing, and as far as experiments go, I'm pretty pleased with the results.

Keep in mind that I'm nowhere near a professional, and have only been at this carving thing for a few years as previously I was lame and just carved the triangle eyes and jagged teeth thing.

First the kid's pride and joy. Being that Caitlin is two, and pretty easily talked into things as long as big brother shares his approval, they went with this "werewolf" design. I can't begin to tell you how proud I was when my son saw it and said, "I want this one daddy, it's a Howling pumpkin!". Not that I've ever let him see The Howling, but just knowing that he knows what it is makes my eyes well up. Imagine how special it's going to be the first time we sit down together and watch the movie...

Ahem, got something in my eye there...anyway, here are a couple of action shots of the kids chopping away.

I sketched it out for them, and did a little detail carving with the Exacto, but Jacob did most of the heavy carving by himself this year. Caitlin impatiently waiting for her turn....

Caitlin finally getting into the action, doing her best to steady the pumpkin for big brother...

And here's the finished product! It's somewhat "Thundercats-ish" but I dig that. I'm definitely proud of them, can't wait to see what they do next year.

Now for mine. I came up with the ideas for mine almost as soon as I fniished last year's. I knew exactly what I wanted to do, and was pretty confident that I'd be able to do some pretty cool pumpkins that not everybody else in the world would do. Of course I'm likely kidding myself, but just go with it and let me have my moment, mkay?

So first thing I came up with was V from one of the greatest comics, and comic based movies, of all time. The mask V wears is so iconic, and such an awesome design, I thought it would look great on a pumpkin. Provided of course that I could do a decent job of sketching and carving it. 

This one turned out to be more difficult that I anticipated, and I went through a couple of different sketches before I decided on one that I would attempt to carve. 

Remember, Remember the 5th of November...and how damn hard this pumpkin was to carve.

The next thing I wanted to do I decided on immediately after watching Trick r' Treat for the first time. It immediately became my favorite Halloween movie ever, and I fell head over heels in love with Sam. I knew I had to do a Sam pumpkin 

On Sam I did cheat a little, I actually found a pattern online to work from. I still freehanded it, but at least I had a reference on this one. I'm very happy with how he turned out.

Her's a closer shot, turned slightly so you get a view of his arm, hand, and signature half-eaten lollipop.

And those are the Bones family pumpk-o-lanterns for this year! Hope ya like 'em, and for christ's sake if you don't, please don't say shit because I spent several hours working on them, and my fingers are STILL sore.