Adventures In Pumpkin Carving - Or- How I Spent A Long Time Getting Ready for Halloween

This year, I decided to be bold, and try doing some fancy pumpkin carving. This was my husband's forte in the past, back when he had two steady hands.  He has some dental tools that a friend gave him for use in fine scale modeling.  They work very well for finicky pumpkin carving, too.

First challenge was to find pumpkins.  The first two I did, I did far too early, and did not do any preservative measures with, and they got very dry and brown.  The ones in the photo above are the first two I made.

SO, on the day before Halloween, we had to trek all the way down to the Homeland on Robinson in Norman to find pumpkins of sufficient size and quality to use for new jack o' lanterns.

Pumpkins acquired, I now had to clean them off. Most pumpkins will have some dried mud on them somewhere.  Always best to wipe them down with disinfecting wipes before you carve, or wash them as you would any other vegetable.

After that, it was time to open them up and scrape them out.  I used a small plastic scraper that was included in a set of "pumpkin carving tools" I had bought.  They are all useless, except for the scraper.  It makes it much easier to get all the stringy stuff loose, and to thin the wall behind your carving if, like me, you don't pierce all the way through the wall of the pumpkin when making your design.

Once the pumpkins are gutted, you can start marking the design.
 I printed out my desired designs, a "Vincent" face (from 1987's Beauty and the Beast TV series) designed by Claire Sieffert,

 and a Hellboy design based on artwork by Jonny Gillard. 

 Trim the design so you don't have an overabundance of extra paper to deal with.
Tape the design over the chosen surface of the pumpkin.  (I advise choosing the side with no little bumps or other things that might make it hard to see your markings when you go to carve the design.)
Make sure to smooth the design over the surface to that it sits as flat as possible.  This will mean making very small folds in places, usually just on the outside edges of the design. 
Once the design is in place, take up your chosen puncturing tool, and begin marking the areas to be carved.

Once you have pierced the surface to mark all the areas to be carved, use a marker (I prefer a chalk marker, as it is easily cleaned from hands and the surface of the pumpkin later) to darken the punctured areas.

Once that is accomplished, you can carefully remove the paper, saving it to use as a visual reference in case you get confused about which areas are being carved out.  (Believe me, it's easy to be confused on these complex designs.)

Once the marking is done, you are ready to start carving.  I didn't get an "in progress" photo of Hellboy, so here's Vincent in progress:

You will notice I am working outdoors.  There is a good reason for this.  Little chips of pumpkin go EVERYWHERE when you carve this way.  (The voice of bitter experience, that had to mop the kitchen, and clean coutertops, cupboard doors, and the backsplash clear across the room, speaking!)

Much careful carving and patience later, you will have a finished jack o' lantern.

(See all the bits of pumpkin around?  I wasn't kidding.  Do this OUTSIDE.)

Canned air (see it on the table, there?) is useful to get tiny bits of pulp out of the finished carving.  (Trust me on this, you're going to want to do it.) 
One thing I did not hear about until after I finished was that if you want the pumpkin to last a LONG time, coat all the cut surfaces and the inside with Vaseline, then spray with Clorox spray bleach (light blue bottle).  Wipe the shell that is still orange  dry, and let the bleach dry well before you put any light source in or the lid back on. 
I DID do the Clorox water bath immediately after I finished carving the second two pumpkins.  You fill your sink with about 5 gallons of water and add 3 tablespoons of bleach.  Mix it around, then dip the pumpkins in the bleach water, being sure to swirl it around inside the pumpkin as well.  Don't forget the tops, and drain well and let air dry thoroughly before you add your light source and your lid. 

Here are my two, on display Halloween night, lit with LED puck lights, so that the light would be strong enough to show through the designs.  If you like the flickery effect, you can use LED candles, but they may not be bright enough for use with pumpkins carved in this way.

SO, for those of you who wondered how on EARTH I did that, this is how.  It isn't really hard, just requires patience and being careful.

Also, I am sorry that I am so nerdy that most of my neighbors didn't know who my pumpkins were.  Hellboy is a comic book character created by Mike Mignola, that Ron Perlman portrayed in Guillermo Del Toro's film versions.  Vincent is the "Beast" from the Beauty and the Beast television series that ran from 1987 - 90, a role which won Ron Perlman a Golden Globe award.    Ron Perlman is my favorite actor, and these two are my favorite of all the characters he's played.  I've met the man a few times, and he is a genuinely nice guy. 
So check out the Hellboy movies and the Beauty and the Beast (1987 version) TV show and see what great stuff you've been missing!