Monday, October 30, 2006

Happy Hallowe'en!... (Ken-O-Lantern)...

It's Hallowe'en! and I like carving pumpkins :) During each holiday I try to do something creative... I try to challenge myself and do something interesting each year. This year I decided to challenge myself again... the following is my first attempt at this sort of carving so you'll have to forgive the crappyness :p On with the show!!!

I went to the grocery store and picked up this pumpkin for $2.50 :) Not bad! I wasn't as prepared as I would have liked to be this year... I'm getting forgetful in my old age :p I had to dig around to look for my tools :) The knife set you see there is actually a wood carving set, it serves its purpose when I'm carving pumpkins tho :p To tell you the truth, I don't recommend using wood carving tools to do your deed, since the pumpkin is organic and wet it ends up helping the oxydizing process. You can find pumpkin carving kits if you do some research.

Step 1: Cut out the top of the pumpkin... be sure the point of the knife is going towards the center, otherwies the cover will fall right in instead of resting on top :)


Step 2: Scoop out the guts. Some people like to try and keep clean and ONLY use the spoon... what fun is that? Get right in there! You'll notice if you compare the images below to the image in Step 1 that you can actually scrape out quite a bit of the meat. It went from about 2-2.5 inches thick to 1-1.5 inches. Ideally you want 3/4 inch to 1/2 inch though it's hard to achieve (evenly).



This particular pumpkin didn't have that many seeds. Many people like to use the insides to make pumpkin pie and / or toast the seeds :)

Step 3: Find a pattern you like... AND Carve 'till you're done! :) Actually, you should probably decide on the pattern before you even purchase the pumpkin :p


Unfortunately I didn't have time to complete it in one sitting. I had to continue the evening after. This resulted in a little shrinkage due to the dehydration, thus the smaller eyes and nose O.o

Step 4: Illuminate! Here is the finished product! TA DAH!


Again, considering I didn't take as much time as I would have liked, it's my first time attempting something like this and there was some shrinkage :p from leaving it overnight... I'm satisfied overall :)

For those of you who don't know, I am a regular KennySia.com reader :D

Hey, Kenny! Not many people can say they've had their face on a Jack-O-Lantern ;)

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

that so cooll.. kenny look very chubby in it.. haha.. look like u really having fun here..

monochromatix said...

Uh... I was trying to make it as 'realistic' as possible *wink wink, nudge nudge* :D

nah... the camera changed the perspective a little :p

Anonymous said...

You should choose that infamous photo where Kenny showed off his teeth.

monochromatix said...

:D I thought about that too, the one that's on Wikipedia?

I just didn't plan it out far enough ahead of time to prepare the photo :) Plus, this is the photo that I used to mash his face together with Mike's (Monster Inc.)

Lonely Linus said...

Nice job. So why did you go to BCIT again? Haha. Just kidding. We really got screwed over with Multimedia.

Happy Halloween!

Anonymous said...

wow, u r an artist

Sharon said...

wow this is so cool!

good job! loved it :D
btw, did you draw the pattern on the pumpkin first before carving it?

J Karpenko said...

Nice job, although ur pumpkin looks like he's sad while his pic has the dumb face... lol j/k

monochromatix said...

X : ummm... to play LAN games during lecture? :P Wireless technology is great innit? Good to see you're back ;)

anon : thanks ;)... I'm still wondering how I ended up in the IT field O.o

sharon : good to see my efforts are being enjoyed by others! Yep... not so much 'drawing' per se, but I did use a pin to poke out the pattern, it leads to a cleaner jack-o-lantern without drawn lines :)

monochromatix said...

KuchikiRukia : Maybe it's sad cuz it's got a dumb face :p j/k

I wish I were more prepared, I think I could have done a better job, though I'm still pretty satisfied with this one :)

Anonymous said...

i get to know ur blog thru kennysia. and ur carving skill is impressive. awesome dude. well done:)

kelly said...

this is sooooo damn cool.
way to go man. WOW

monochromatix said...

Question: Are there alot of people celebrating Hallowe'en in Asia now?

Piccola said...

Love your pumpkin. LOL.. :D

Anonymous said...

That's an awesome piece of art work!

monochromatix said...

Thankyou ;) I like to challenge myself once in awhile :)