I will say that pumpkin was a nightmare from the get-go. Forget about the insane problems of doing a pattern all the way around the pumpkin, or carving it without smudging any of the pattern anywhere - the pumpkin itself was as hard as wood in some places and completely soft in others!

TheYoutube video is a bit dark, but it shows you what the pumpkin looks like as its fully turned.

I contacted Anne Stokes about carving her most awesome Forest Walk Dragon into a pumpkin. Two years ago, I carved her Aracnoid painting to great results. Not only did she agree to give me a larger image to make the pattern from, she gave me a signed print for sending her the picture you see to the right! This was done on a 80lb pumpkin, and took about 16 hours to carve and close to that long to make the pattern.

I did a very scary pumpkin of Jack Skellington from the Nightmare Before Christmas. Jack is fairly thin, so keeping his body thick backwards is critical. My son did a really good job of Brad's Jack pattern (second picture).

I really enjoyed the movie, Coraline, and thought the movie poster would make a good carving. You can see a close-up of the Coraline label with the cat text also if interested

Also, Oogly-Boogly from Nightmare Before Christmas.

A nice Gollum cut-through & a nice Gandalf cut-through pattern.

Castle

My nephew, Joseph, did Marc VanderPal's most excellent Mountainside Manor pattern. It came out pretty well I think.

I hadn't planned on doing another Death Star, but I got contacted by Jimmy Kimmel Live folks to a segment with this. They eventually cancelled, but I still had a 148lb pumpkin, so...

I carved a watermelon a few months back (Mayish?) at an event called "FooCamp". I carved this around a bon-fire from like 10:00pm till 2:00am in the morning California time. For a light, all I had was campfire, and my tool selection consisted of a single V-wedge. All things considering it came out fairly well.

here's a I carved "Mini-Me" DeathStar for a Charity event in VA (Joe Gibbs' Youth for Tomorrow Country Fair). I spent most of the day teaching folks how to carve pumpkins, but did get in this one and a Sponge Bob.  If you want to carve this yourself, go to the Carving the Death Star tutorial.

I really liked the Enterprise from the new Star Trek movie. This was finished right before "Show Time" and was carved on an 80lb pumpkin.

This is a sculpt of the Face Hugger from Alien when it is still in the egg. It was a fairly hard sculpt for me, but I think it came off fairly well. I used two drawings from Giger (bottom right) to figure out what the Face Hugger inside egg looked like.

I decided it was probably a good idea to carve the word, "Alien" on the side of the pumpkin, just in case most didn't get this. Many didn't, but all thought it was creepy!

I had a fun time carving a sculpt of a World of Warcraft Orc Grunt. His teeth were especially fun. Unfortunately, I'm so slow on my carving of these that by the end the pumpkin started getting VERY stringy. Still, I think it turned out OK.

My son, Justin carved a werewolf from Diablo III.

My Nephew carved a really cool skull sculpt, which unfortunately he took to an event at George Mason and left it out...it melted in the heat...

My son, Justin carved the Beast Within. Turned out great! He also tried Brad's Flaming Skull pattern.

My nephew carved the poster from the movie, 9. I really liked the movie (was a cool scifi anime), and thought this poster would work out well.

My nephew, Joseph did a pretty good job on this really difficult Spiderman cut-through. Unfortunately, the pumpkin was stringly, so it made things hard.

My son's friend, Kendall, carved her first pumpkin, based on JP's Batman pattern.

Michelle Pfeiffer is definitely my favorite Catwoman. I think this pattern, modified from one of St0ney's came out fairly well..

My son started this, the wifey finished it.

I did a pretty fun Tinkerbell-Croc pumpkin using Saeco's Tink pattern, plus a Crocodile pattern I threw together.

This is from Sariel's most excellent Snow White Bite the Apple pattern. I just love this pumpkin.

My daughter carved a great Tom & Jerry.

Sarah's first Bob the Blob from Monsters and Aliens died in the heat, so my wife, Nam, did a second one.

My daughter, Sarah did both Brad's Green Eggs and Ham pattern, and a really cool Gothfairy pattern by Sariel.

I love the way my wife's Mickey Pirate came out! She also did UP and a wonderful Cat in the Hat.

Sponge Bob and Scooby are both MUST CARVES, as the little kids just love them. Elmo, while not quite at that level is close.

My daughter did a bunch more here - Hello Kitty, Barney and the Ginea Pig guy from that really aweful kids movie.

My nephew, Joseph, did a great hand-cut butterfly. He pretty much winged it.