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It’s the Great Pumpkins, Mad Art Lab!

Happy Halloween, everyone! Some of us who celebrate have gotten crafty on some pumpkins. Take a look!

My last-minute pumpkin quest took me to two stores today: one had already gotten rid of all their pumpkins(!!!), and the other had a whopping four to choose from.

I selected the most sincere.

a split image of a pumpkin in a grocery cart, and a carved pumpkin with a pointy-toothed grin on newspaper surrounded by pumpkin "guts" and seeds.
Before and after. Freehand punkin carving on Halloween day!

Ray entered the Merriam Webster pumpkin contest with this fantastic pun:

a pumpkin in a dark room carved with the words "IT'S LIT ERALLY" and lit from the inside.
If this doesn’t win, I don’t know what would.

Flurgh, my unofficial Mad Art Lab Assistant who keeps doing way cooler things than me, carved these impressive pumpkins from foam decorations. Most of them replicate images of Zilloween pumpkins from the game Glitch.

A row of five pumpkins carved to resemble jack-o-lanterns from the game Glitch, all on a wooden table.
You know we’re nerds when we still make stuff based on a years-defunct MMO. <3
a set of three images of various carved pumpkins, lit from the inside in the dark.
Also lit.

This one is a bit old… six years, to be exact. A friend’s first (and last) attempt at pumpkin carving, she said “I carved it because we were getting ready to move to the US and that’s what they do here, so, you know. Preparing in advance.”

a pumpkin carved with the image of a dragon/phoenix.
This is a damned impressive first attempt at pumpkin-carving.

Another friend’s son carved a trumpkin.

a pumpkin carved to resemble the 2016 Republican presidential candidate.
I hear this pumpkin is yuuuge. With the best seeds.

And then there’s this one, which I personally find rather frightening.

From Jesse Harding in 2009, when Veer was still a thing and they had a pumpkin-carving contest. STILL SCARY.
From Jesse Harding in 2009, when Veer was still a thing and they had a pumpkin-carving contest. STILL SCARY.

If you haven’t carved your own pumpkin yet, you can try one of these ideas from GeekDad (Hamilton! Pokemon! David Bowie!), or get inspired by this time-lapse video of how the pros do it.

And if you’d like to be REALLY impressed, check out NASA’s pumpkin carving contest. They have ONE HOUR to build these!

Did you carve a Halloween pumpkin this year? Show us in the comments!

Beth Voigt

Beth is a graphic designer in Chicago, a superhero in her own mind, and absolutely nothing on TV. She wrangles fonts professionally, pummels code amateurishly, and has been known to shove fire in her face for fun. Fond of volunteering, late-night bursts of productivity, and making snacks, she dislikes grocery shopping and sticky public transit and is only on her second smartphone. Her opinion is that you should try everything twice; if you don't like it, you were probably doing it wrong the first time around. If external links are your thing, here are links to Twitter and Instagram, and you can support her ongoing weirdness by buying her a coffee or six.

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