This is essentially a relief sculpture, and you're obviously limited by the thickness of the pumpkin. More pumpkinicity: it was easier to tell that this was made from pumpkins folks "got the joke" from passing vehicles, not just up close during trick-or-treating.Īnother UPDATE:Check it out: Pumpkin Skull Instructableīe sure to do the skull first, because as soon as it's done, your creation has personality. Lower stress: big strength increase resulted in more cooperative bones that were less likely to break during the engineering phase (step 4). UPDATE: Ignore that last sentence about "whittling it all away." For the 2007 model, I left WAY more orange, with the following results: 1.
On the photo of the moldy skull, I left a bit of orange here and there, but on the full skeleton, you should whittle it all away. Keep in mind that the farther "in" you go, the softer the material becomes. As you carve, you're removing that part, exposing the creepy, yellowish bonelike surface. The pumpkin is strongest at it's outer surface, i.e. I'm afraid that you're kind of on your own for this step: when it comes to achieving the actual shapes you've got to just go for it. I do have a great scooper (a pointed shovel with serrated edges and a lovely orange handle: see photo) that speeds up the evisceration, but apart from that, it's all about the knife. Keep body parts in your refrigerator until your whole skeleton is complete (Surreal moments occur when you open the fridge for a midnight snack and find yourself face to face with a human skull). Note: Keep your pumpkin intact until you're ready to carve it, to minimize future festering. Remove the pumpkin's entrails save the seeds if you're hungry. through a hole you make located right where the spine would attach, so draw accordingly. The "scrap" comes in handy for additional sections of spine, so don't compost any large pieces until the carving is done! "Torso" Leave an oversized chunk of spine for the lower back you may need to do some engineering later to get it to fit together here. A bit bigger means it will "sit" better, even as it crumbles into soggy fuzz. there's not much mass to a real pelvic bone, so you want to take some anatomical adjustments. "Hands & Feet" You can get the hands from anywhere on the surface, depending on what your fleshless friend is doing - use the top where the pumpkin curves into the stem for "bent" fingers (my guitar player's left hand) Drawing (& cutting) along the pumpkin's natural vertical grooves can help here. "Arms & Legs" A pumpkin this shape can yield more than one of each bone, so try to keep it as intact as possible in case you have to make additional bones (they can break, your dog might run away with one). Your pen marks on the skull, torso & pelvis should be relatively symmetrical. Notice: your skull, pelvis & torso are all basically hollow objects full of guts. My diagram should give you a VERY general idea of where the bones are hiding. For instance, if you do 5 or 6 ribs, they'll read as a "ribcage" to the viewer, and you've accomplished your goal. But you'll be removing all or most of the orange skin, so no pen marks will make it to your final creation.įind some skeleton illustrations for reference, but don't go nuts shooting for accuracy aim for the overall impression, not each bone. If you don't like what you've drawn, you can erase with alcohol if you really want to.
Of course, you're looking at some serious total weight by the time you find all of your pumpkins, so be prepared to pay for well over fifty pounds.ĭraw guidelines with permanent marker, keeping in mind the eventual carving. But the nice thing is, these are usually pumpkins that nobody wants, because normal people don't make skeletons out of them. It's an odd experience to hunt for pumpkins with this twisted agenda you're not looking for perfection, you're trying to see the potential for body parts. You may be able to use parts from the other pumpkins for these.
The taller gourds tend to have thick skin and are stronger than pumpkins with poorer posture. Pelvis: spherical (a soulless clone will work for this one). Torso / ribcage: Tall, barrel-shaped, or large pear, and torso-sized 3. The skull: Shaped like a pear, and as big as your head 2. the soulless clones that make it to your supermarket are just too perfect. You'll have better luck with a rural grower with a variety of shapes and sizes. Finding the right pumpkins can be quite a challenge.