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Well, since you asked....

1.  I put the selected image through two programs: Inkscape (shareware) and photoshop.  Some of the processing is automated, but there's a lot of manual work to do in each program.  A lot of what I'm doing is reducing the complexity of the image to something that can be carved.  I end up with an image that is black and orange.

2.  Print the image on paper.  It sometimes takes 4 or more sheets of 8.5 x 11.5 paper.  I tape them together into one sheet.

3.  Glue the sheet on the pumpkin with Elmer's washable school glue.  This is tricky...flat paper and round pumpkin.  The glue makes the paper pliable to a degree.  Cutting the paper and smooching it about is involved.  I let the pumpkin dry a minimum of two hours, usually overnight.

4.  The carving begins.  I transfer the patter to the pumpkin by "tracing" the pattern in with an exacto knife.  I do the whole pumpkin.

5.  Once that is done I start carving.  I have these little exacto tools that are like little chisels.  I think they were made for working with balsa wood.  I peel away the edge of the paper and shave off the skin where the pattern indicates.  The area to be shaved is the orange part of the pattern.  I keep an single sheet of the pattern next to me for reference and I also have the big pattern that I'm peeling away as ai carve to remind me of where to shave.

6.  I hardly ever do cut throughs.  All I do is shave away the skin.

7.  I usually do 3-4 pumpkins.  After each one is carved I put a wet towel over the shaved part.  I soak the towel in a solution of water and bleach to retard the growth of mold.

8.  Once all the pumpkins are carved, I then open them, clean them out, and thin the walls where the pattern is to about 1/2".  Leaving the cleaning part till last, lets the pumpkins last longer.  It's the cleaning of the insides that resale accelerates decay.

9.  I light the pumpkins with some battery powered led lights.  OVer the years I've done CFTBL (my avatar), Tarantula, Frankenstein, Incredible Shrinking Man, Forbidden Planet, Invisible Man, The Mummy.  I think the one I like best is CFTBL.

bobzilla wrote:

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That's pretty fascinating!

Have you tried using Adobe Illustrator to simplify the images using it's tracing tools? They're pretty good at simplifying complex images.

Also, can you just project onto the pumpkin like artists project onto a canvas and carve from that, skipping the paper step, or is there too much distortion that way?