I had a slight speed bump when it came to hobby progress as of late (which is funny, considering that I haven’t really been making much progress as of late–at least not that I’ve documented). Still, I did have to put the paintbrush and superglue down this weekend and took up the annual tradition of gourd evisceration.
You may remember my Hormagaunt pumpkin from 2010, or the demonic baby fetus from 2011. I also did a pumpkin in 2012 as well, but I never blogged about it (perhaps because it wasn’t 40k related–but then again, neither was the fetus). This year, I’m still estranged from the 40k theme, but I figured I’d blog about it just the same. Not because it exactly constitutes hobby progress, but because it was what I did in lieu of that progress.
For the past 8 years or so, I’ve been working with Styrofoam pumpkins because my mom bought me a bunch of them on sale after Halloween one year. I really like the idea that they last forever, but they’re far more difficult to work with and there’s a lot of things you just can’t do with them. With my first foray back into real flesh carving, I decided to work on a relief sculpture. While I was originally planning on doing something like Eddie (the mascot for Iron Maiden), it really came to me that my kids would far prefer something of the mutant variety.
Without a doubt, my son’s favorite TV show (at least this month) is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, so I opted to go with that. It being a cartoon, it would be more forgiving to sculpt, and my lack of experience with this sort of carving made that an enticing enough reason to go with it.
I wound up carving it almost exclusively with X-acto knives: one smaller one and a larger one. All in all, it took probably about 2 hours, with a hefty dose of conversation thrown in. I was a bit afraid that the light wouldn’t shine through, but I think it works out nicely.
For preservation, I found a link over at Extreme Pumpkins that suggests washing the piece in bleach, so I gave that a whirl too. It only has to last five more days though, so I probably could’ve just left it au natural.
Anywho, hopefully I’ll be able to post some real hobby progress in the near future. Thanks, as always, for dropping by.
Warhammer 39,9999 
That’s awesome! Well done.
Thanks. I wasn’t particularly proud at first, but it does look good lit up. Next year, I hope to do something a little more detailed.
On Mon, Oct 27, 2014 at 6:52 AM, Warhammer 39,9999 wrote:
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Turtle Power!
Pssst. Bags of toys for you at my house.
On Tue, Oct 28, 2014 at 9:16 AM, Warhammer 39,9999 wrote:
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That’s fab, I’ve been following Villafane Studios on facebook, their relief sculptures are amazing and they’ve got stalk like arms and legs that you can add to your pumpkins to make them look more animated. Recent additions include reusable relief eyes, so you carve a hole and pop in the rubber eye for instant cool.
I’ve carved pumpkins for the past 10 years, initially stencils but now I freehand grinning jacks. Nothing fancy just pure graphic simplicity. I’m so envious of the fake ones you can get in America, would love to have a stock of them like you, although where I’d put them is anyone’s guess.
Hallowe’en will bea little more low-key for us this year thanks to the home improvements but I still enjoy the spirit of it even if we’ll have the annual dismissal of it in the UK, either for it’s ‘sinister overtones’ or ‘it’s an Americanisation that we shouldn’t tolerate’ when we’ve been ‘guising’ in this country for centuries. Now it’s just taken on the American phrase of trick or treat and the shops are filled with cheap spooky items that have made it more commercial, which I think is the crux of the issue, but we want to blame someone, so it’s probably Spielberg’s fault thanks to ET!
The subtle differences between the US and Europe always amaze me. I just take for granted the fact that we have environmental decimating Styrofoam pumpkins readily available at so many locations. And where would I store them? Well, in the basement, of course. I just forget that houses are–on average–three times as big over here.
Do kids go trick-or-treating over there?
http://www.demographia.com/db-intlhouse.htm
On Wed, Oct 29, 2014 at 4:45 AM, Warhammer 39,9999 wrote:
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Cowabunga dude! That’s great!
Bodacious!
On Wed, Oct 29, 2014 at 4:04 PM, Warhammer 39,9999 wrote:
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