2005
This year I chose to be liberated from my routine jack-o-lantern technique and just carve into the flesh try to create an interesting sculpture.  This more straightforward method turns out to be easier and more rewarding, as I don't have to transfer a portrait to my pumpkin, don't have to illuminate it while I'm carving and can exhibit it just as nicely in the light as in the dark.  I just carve until I have something creepy looking.  I couldn't spend the time I wanted on the four I did for 2005.  I spent about seven hours on this demon, most of that time spent on the teeth.  I tried to create the impression of scales but don't know how successful I was.  I just know that I have basically never been more happy with a jack-o.

To a lesser degree I am pleased with my other three jacks, though my first was too rushed for me to want to show it off here, though I appreciate all the compliments I got on it.  The demon was my second.  The third was the two-face jack, which didn't come out quite as well as I'd hoped because of the stringy flesh of the pumpkin, which started to brown and shrivel up almost immediately.  It didn't look too good illuminated, either.  The raging orc was my last jack of the year and turned out okay considering that the flesh was so stringly that I had to use sharp x-acto blades exclusively to carve it.  But it wasn't really what I was shooting for.

 

My old method I've discarded for good, though a few of the jacks I've carved over the years I was happy with at the time.   A friend sent me a link to this site and that definitely inspired my change of M.O.  The Pumpkin Gutter guy really raised the bar on jack carving.

 

 

Two-face would have turned out far better if I'd had better material.  This pumpkin turned out to be a little on the edge.  The crumbly flesh did lend it a sort of cadaver-ish feel.  It actually manages to be creepy and this is my first jack to come close to being scarifying.