Kanye Carve Pumpkins?

When we first talked about carving pumpkins, my roommate, Steve, had mentioned that he wanted to somehow incorporate some "rapper blinds" and a fedora he had lying around into his carving. "Could you carve Kanye West into a pumpkin?" Steve inquired.

Rapper Blinds.

I laughed, simultaneously pondering how cool and difficult it would be to carve Kanye West's likeness into a pumpkin. "No. Hehe... I mean... it would certainly be fun to try."

My mind started working on how I might go about attempting this feat.

This is how I made it happen:

1) Get a picture of Kanye Online. Something With shadow, lighting from the side, not too complex.

Like this.

2) In photoshop, paint white outlines over the light areas. Fill the background with grey. Select both the white areas and the grey background. Make an inverse selection and fill what is left with black. Add the "blinds" effect to his sunglasses.

Slick piece of art, even by itself.

3) Once you've got that created, print out the picture. Unless, of course, you have no printer. (I have no printer) In this case you tape a piece of paper to your screen and trace your carving template - wondering the entire time if you're causing irreparable damage to your LCD screen, which swirls in small whirlpools under the pressure of your pencil.

Tracing works well in this case. Be light with your fingers, though. Not worth replacing an LCD screen... even for Kanye.

4) You've got the traced template. Label the sections accordingly as to where you'll carve, where you'll skim, etc.

Thank you, David, for holding the paper.

5) Open the pumpkin and carve out the innards. Eat them. You'll need the energy for the long, arduous journey ahead.

Don't really eat them.

6) Tape the paper to the pumpkin and use a punchy thing (came in a carving kit) to poke holes along the lines into the pumpkin below. When you've punched the entire thing into the pumpkin - you'll know because your hands will be cramping horribly - take off the paper and start carving.

Yeah, I skipped the picture for the paper-taped-to-pumpkin step. I apologize. What you see here is me carving out the peices after I'd punched the template into the pumpkin.

7) Carve into the pumpkin on the outside so that light can bleed through, creating a nice background to your Kanye. Place a fedora on his head to give him that true, modern rapper look.

Damn, gangsta. You lookin good.

8) Turn off the lights. Place a candle in the pumpkin. And enjoy your carving.

I was extremely happy with the end result.

Kanye is a little bulb-ified because of the roundness of the pumpkin. It's hard to get that template to translate well onto the curved surface of the pumpkin without getting some distortion.

It took a lot of work, but in the words of Kanye himself, "N-n-now that that don't kill me, can only make me stronger..." :)

-Barry