Happy Halloween!

I thought since we moved closer to town we’d get trick or treaters. So I bought 4 bags of candy, naturally. And we’ve had a big fat zero trick or treaters. BOO!

I’m going to drown my skeleton sorrows in a big plastic pumpkin full of Halloween candy.

But first I’ll show you my jackolantern, because it’s cool. I spent 2 hours slouched in the basement carving it with my dremel tool, and I woke up very sore this morning as a result. I’ve invented the sport of Extreme Pumpkin Carving!

Two hours probably sounds like a lot, but it’s a Funkin, so I figure since I can use it pretty much forever, it was worth it to spend an ungodly amount of time carving the stupid thing. Right? Right.

I wanted to do a haunted house scene, and I thought it would be rad to carve all the way around the pumpkin, so I had one looping scene. So here is 360 degrees of spooky jackolantern!

Here are some non-seizure inducing still shots, lit:

haunted house side

 

haunted forest side

 

graveyard side

 

full moon side

Here it is unlit:

Unlit still shots:

haunted house

 

haunted forest

 

graveyard

 

full moon

 

If you’re new to Funkin carving, here are some tips:

1. They sell a special knife type tool for carving these guys, but I’ve always used my Dremel with a 3/16″ drill bit on it.

2. Hold the dremel at an angle when you carve. When I held the dremel straight, periodically the foam would get caught and kind of EXPLODE in my face. This also rips a big hole in the Funkin, which can really screw up your design.

3. Holding the dremel at an angle will also give you cleaner lines on edges.

4. Carve outside, or at the very least in the garage or somewhere else easy to clean up.  Wear a facemask and goggles and an apron. The foam gets EVERYWHERE. It’s like fine sawdust, and it’s a pain to try to get off your clothes. (And it hurts like hell when you get it in your eyes.)

5. To do the “etched” areas where you only take off the outer most layer, slowly move the dremel back and forth over the surface. Like you’re coloring with a marker in slow motion. Take off as little as you can- the Funkins seem to be about 1/2″ thick near the top and bottom, but it’s more like 1/4″ thick around the equator (hehe).  That’s not a lot of room for error, so don’t take off too much!

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