No, That's Not a Roar in the Background Audio

File this one under "Blind hogs and acorns."

My artistic skills are…well…questionable. That's why I'm so tickled that today's pumpkin carving turned out so well. Last year I carved my first-ever pumpkin. I haven't touched the tools since that day. What I wanted to do this year was create an Aslan pumpkin. But I couldn't find a suitable pattern anywhere online. I decided to do my own.

The project turned out to be much more involved than anything that I attempted last year. For one thing, I wouldn't have a simple pattern to follow. Indeed, I had to make my own pattern. I downloaded a JPG photo of Aslan from the recent movie. Using Photoshop, I added adjustment layers for Hue/Saturation and Brightness/Contrast to create a highly contrasted Grayscale image of Aslan's face. I then upscaled the image to fit my Letter sized page and printed it out.

Now, for the next complication. It became clear to me that a simple cutting out of holes (like I did last year) just wouldn't do. I was going to have to accomplish shading and highlights—partial shading of the gourd. And there's really no way to tell what it is going to look like (for a novice like me) until darkness falls and you light the thing up, although deeper cuts ought to mean brighter light, right?

So, I transferred some rough reference points (eyes, nose, mouth, outline of the mane, etc.) and worked the thing over with scraper and knives, and the movie below depicts the results. Honest…this is the first and only attempt that I made. I'm pretty tickled with it. If you aren't impressed, it's just because you don't realize how poor my artistic skills really are.

Enjoy. BTW, You'll need QuickTime to view it.