Back in 2011 I mentioned about wanting to make a Vorox pumpkin in the Bionicle Jack-O-Lanterns post. I've wanted to make a Vorox pumpkin since the year 2009; and I did just that back in 2012. The two pumpkins above are from last year, I carved them a little late, and not a moment too soon being that the one was starting to slowly decay. Originally I wasn't planning on doing two, but since there was an extra pumpkin, I went with Gresh as my second image choice. Both images were small symbols already made, I simply took these clip art images and enlarged them in Photoshop, then made them outlines. I'll speak more about the stencils at the bottom of this post. The most surprising thing is that I carved both pumpkins in one day.
I chose Gresh as my second design choice for three reasons; one- the design was simple and would take less effort, two-his mask designs had large designs for easy cutting and more light shine compared to some of the other designs, and three- I just like his character and felt he would be fun to set next to a Vorox.
(Above) side view of Gresh, I love the glint of the candle light which shines through his one eye, like he's looking at you and winking. ^.~
(Left) close up of Gresh, the most intricate process was carving the eye lids and decorative ridges in the center of his mask. (Right) day time image when it's not lit.
The Vorox was a challenge, but it was fun to pull off. I wouldn't have been able to achieve the full design and all its details without a little help from a family member, but I mostly needed help with the grooves on the pincers and ears. I loved making the extra grooves in the mask, and pulled it off smoothly with the help of some wood carving tools. Wood carving tools are the best friend for pumpkin carving, I just use the small saws from pumpkin carving kits to cut chunks out of the small grooves, and settle with wood carving tools for everything else. Outlining the mask and circle was the most time consuming. Overall it was a long and tiresome project, I stood at the table hunched over my pumpkins for hours, started getting sore feet and a back ache, but in the end it was well worth the effort.
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| Day time image |
Above is the Vorox Pumpkin during the day, amazing what a little candlelight and darkness do for the carving. This particular pumpkin is the one that started to decay on the back side. I was fearful it would collapse on me while I scraped out flesh, but it held up just fine on the front. (Left) close up image to show details. As you may notice, the pumpkin had a gray, rough spot which looks kind of like a scar on the Vorox, but thankfully isn't noticeable at night when the pumpkin is lit.
Below are the stencil images used for the pumpkins, shown next to their original clip art image.
On the left, is the stencil version of the clip art images shown to the right. I didn't have to change much on the Gresh image, I just changed it into an outline and drew separation lines around the prongs of his mask. Had to have separation lines in order to to know where to carve and what to avoid. On the Vorox stencil I added extra details from the actual mask of the toy set. The original clip art was actually too simplistic for my taste, and ended up getting aid to make my stencil design even better than what I was planning at first. Once I made the stencils, I adjusted their size in Photoshop, then printed them out on paper, and transferred them to the pumpkins. I had to scrunch the paper around the pumpkin and pin it in place with thumb tacks, then ran a pokey tool along the design lines and started carving from there. You can do the same, simply by saving the stencil images and giving it a try for yourself. Have fun, and enjoy. ^.~
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