Tuesday, October 7, 2014

how to make a pumpkinhead

Long time, no see (as usual.)
Just stumbled on some photos from last year's Halloween costume that I never got around to sharing.  I think the pumpkinhead portion was pretty successful ...so here's my recipe.



(First, the inspiration. A 1930s photo that was making the rounds a lot last year)


The material used was all crap I had stored in my barn.
Large paper lantern, about 1-2 square yards of 1-inch upholstery foam, and orange tissue paper.

I cut the foam into big petal shaped wedges, shaped the edges a bit,


and then attached them to the lantern using spray mount.  The foam pieces didn't fit exactly but were easy enough to manipulate, with some fudging and fussing.



Then I randomly collaged the tissue paper all over the pumpkin. The tissue gets all wrinkled and adds good texture.  This part was messy.  



You can't see it but I wore a FEZ underneath to hold the head in the right position.  After I figured that out, I cut a mouth opening to line up with my eyes, using a large serrated knife.

I also made a little burlap stem for the top, even though it doesn't show. It was perfect for holding the witch hat on; I just used a 10-12 inch long hat pin and drove it through the hat and stem. 

As for the rest of the costume, I played around with a few different ideas


but would up doing something that was old-timey, classic,  and comfortable.

The final result, in sepia:

P.S.  The old fashioned bag was made with a home-made stencil


and I saved all the leftover foam scraps, which I am keeping out of the landfill by using in this year's costume.    Stay tuned.