Before you even begin to carve you need a plan. Why? because it makes everything that much easier. The plan doesn't have to be complicated, it is usually enough to have some ideas about what you want to carve. The way I do this is to draw them out. If I can draw them then you can carve them. When you draw them make sure you plan spots to keep structures together. A technique I find helps, I call implied shape. Take for example Hellboy here...
As you can see his horns up top aren't complete lines, instead what I did was leave blanks in the middle of the line. This keeps the structure of the design, and if you mark where the line starts and then were it ends you can remove the middle and your eye will naturally fill in the void. This design I pulled right out a comic book panel and drew up a few times until I got a pattern I liked.
Of course you can do simpler designs too. I do them often, I prefer many pumpkins littering the yard, and for the amount of work that takes, it is good to have some easy ones to do. if you need some ideas I recommend
Choosing Pumpkins
One of the other reasons it is important to have a design before you have your pumpkins is because it will help you when you get your pumpkins. Take Cheeky here for example...
The idea with Cheeky is a zombie with it's cheek ripped off exposing the teeth and jaw. So for carving this a taller, thicker slender pumpkin is best. Tall and slender gives better effect to the wrap around, and the thickness helps prevent it from falling in on itself under it's weight.
When you are choosing your pumpkins think about what size, shape and contour you want. The exterior of pumpkins can have a lot of texture, consider using the natural contour in your design. Something else that is important to think about is how it sits. It is not enough when buying a pumpkin to get one with a great face and shape, it is important to see how your carving will be canvased so place the pumpkin on the ground before purchasing it, take a step or two back and see how it looks where you would display it, and where you carve it.
Preferred tools of the Trade
For the tools, the basics of a knife and a spoon to clean work well. What works better though are these...
That spoon is a spectacular device, you can clean and thin a pumpkin super quick with one of these and with minimal effort. The thin toothed blade makes it easy to accelerate the cuts, and to make sharp corners. Thicker blades, have trouble with corners. What you will need is a good knife though to cut into the skin and start the cuts first. A curved paring knife is ideal to start the skin penetrations. Some other tools to consider is a drill where you need it for making circles such as the small feet of this frog...
If you have the right tools it is of course much easier to do the job and do it better. The scoop, pumpkin knife and a parring knife, total roughly $20. The little blade is good for about ten pumpkins til it dulls, but those are really cheap. I don't know about you, but my time and frustration is worth $20.
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