When it comes to the admittedly-niche topic of jack-o-lantern patterns, I'm nothing if not kleptomaniacal. If someone has a good idea, I steal it. This originally evolved out of necessity; my family loves the holidays, and so for Halloween, each of the four kids had the opportunity to carve many a pumpkin. When I was but a lad, I had certain...troubles thinking of decent ideas. Scary face...overdone. Let's see.....uhhhhhhh...you get the idea. So, instead of flexing the rubber hose of my youthful creativity, I simply went around the neighborhood, looking for ideas to steal. And it worked. And this jack-o-lantern stealing soon become a cherished tradition within the hollows of my heart.

So imagine my delight when my work team's Mega Man pumpkin, the idea of which came from here, was not suggested by me, thus meaning that I didn't steal the idea. (But before you give me a Nobel Peace prize, I will admit I was planning on stealing this "Objection!" pumpkin idea).

So, how does one go about making a Mega Man jack-o-lantern? Here is my step-by-step evolution.

Basically, like any detailed pumpkin design, you should have a guide, and with Mega's naturally pixelated form, that was quite simple. Just take a good-sized picture, print it out, and slap it on that pumpkin. (Here's a tip: instead of using tape to adhere the design, try sticky putty; it allows you to work with less paper.) You then find some way of transferring the design from paper to pumpkin. My preferred way is with a pin (or, failing that, a thin-tipped pen), poking lines of holes throughout the pumpkin. We are then left with this:

And then, after removing the paper:

(Apologies if it's a bit hard to make out, but you get the gist of it.) So, here we have a full Mega Man design on this pumpkin. But we can't just go in with a tiny serrated blade and start cutting willy-nilly. After all, Mega Man is not monochromatic, he has a range of shades.

Five shades, in fact. From #1 black to #5 white.

So how do we deal with this?   ....Well, I'm dealing with by shaving off various levels of skin, to create a multiple-translucency pumpkin, from full-flesh to totally-cut-out. This requires planning, my friends. Which is why I went in with a sharpie and pen to prep myself.

(You may want to view this one at full resolution to get the full effect.) Basically, I colored the black sections black to help give them some more definition, and then numbered each pixel range by what shade they represent when I start to shave down the skin. Basically, this is going to be shaving by numbers.

PART 2: Bringing Out the Knives!

So, now that we're set up, let's get cutting! I'll admit I was nervous about doing this, because I've never done a multiple-shade design, before, and I didn't want to pull a Molyneux Maneuver (overpromising and/or underdelivering). So, I tried using every tool at my disposal: letter openers, butter spreaders, and knives, knives, knives of all shapes and sizes! I was an after-school PSA's nightmare. However, I managed to avoid slitting any major arteries, and instead came up with this:

Argh! Sorry, I'll try not to do that again. This terrifying (and pudgy-looking) unlit version doesn't do the pumpkin justice (neither does my lousy camera). After all, the inner skin of a pumpkin always looks the same. But there's more detail than you think. If you look cloesly at Mega Man's crotch (and I hope that is a phrase I'll never have to use again), you'll see his underwear is protruding just a bit from his legs. This is hopefully going to...

Actually, why don't I just show you what it does.

It's no Mona Lisa, to be sure, but it ain't all that shabby either. I mean, you can see his underwear , boots, and glove are slightly darker than the rest of his body. Admitedly, we only really have four levels of shading instead of the hoped-upon five, but I'd say we're good so far.

...So far?

Indeed. You see, I wanted to go one step further than just this. I have Mega's outline already made, so why do I bother stopping. I wanted to add some more depth. So, I decided to make a background, to make him really stand out. Just like the rest of this project, it was a completely new experience, so I had no idea how it would turn out. Better? Worse?

Who cares! Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

Ack! Sorry, I accidentally posted another of these unlit monstrosities. This part of the process had a couple mishaps, including me accidentally shaving a nickel-sized hole in the area behind Mega's armpit. Luckily, some scraping with a butter spreader gave me some nice pumpkin paste, which acted as a nice spackle to fill that hole quite nicely.

But enough dilly-dallying; time for the final reveal:

So there you go! Honestly, I can't decide whether this is better or worse the version without the background, but I took pictures of both, so what does it really matter?

The overall carving/shaving time was about 3.5 hours (I only know this because I managed to listen to almost the entire Assassin's Creed soundtrack during the course of my work. And I'd say it was well-spent. This was very experimental on my part, and  by turning out halfway decent, it was much better than I was expecting (I honestly thought it would be only a quarter-way decent).

In any event, I hope you enjoyed this step-by-step glimpse of one pumpkin's evolution as much as I enjoyed being the force of said evolution.

Finally, in the spirit of the season, here's a Mega Man ghost, courtesy of my ineptitude with long-exposure photography.

Happy Halloween!!! :D