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Pumpkin Monsters 2024
behind the sculpt
The inspiration for the Pumpkin Monsters stems back to the beginning of all of this. When I returned to sculpting in 2022, my first video for Youtube was a Pumpkin Monster (seen below). The original Pumpkin Monster wasn’t much of a marvel, but I loved it and I still do to this day. On a technical level, it’s a mess. If I remember correctly, it had a ball of foil as the core, but I used way too much clay making it. It could serve as a fantastic paper weight though! Still, I love this little pumpkin and will always remember it as the starting point of this journey!
The Experience
This project was a joy from start to finish. I was excited to get started, unsure if I would just sculpt one pumpkin or multiple. By the time I was finishing the first pumpkin, however, I had to sculpt another. And I’m glad I did because I think the second pumpkin is my favorite (the one with the most teeth and yellow/red eyes).
I had a lot of fun with the details on these sculpts and I always enjoy the opportunity to have some fun sculpting monster teeth! Working on this project with the company of the Twitch community was a blast as well. Sharing in all the spooky season fun was a treat as this is hands down my favorite time of year so it was fun to enjoy some spooky themed playlists, conversations and crafting! Big thanks to everyone who joined me throughout the process!
Lessons learned
I went into this project with two objectives. First, to revisit the pumpkin monster concept and apply the skills and techniques I’ve acquired since my first sculpt. Second, to attempt to sculpt a closed mouth but still feature a fair amount of detail and teeth on display. The purpose of this was to practice designs more practical for molding and casting – something I hope to get into in the near future.
Upon completion, I’m incredibly satisfied with the outcome overall so I would say I succeed on my first goal. As for the second? Mostly. I think I did an overall good job on the teeth/mouth designs. Particularly in the larger pumpkin with the yellow/red eyes. I do see room for improvement though and the first thing I would do to address that would be to forego leaving such a deep void in the base formation of the mouth. Next time, when I start forming the features, the mouth needs to be more flush with the surrounding area and the teeth should be formed on top of that layer. Additionally, when it comes to sculpting the brow, I will make future iterations more like the second pumpkin from this project where the brow flows more naturally into the top of the pumpkin. Lessons learned!
