I am adding the photo of the face mounted to the pumpkin first, because I know that is what everyone is waiting to see. I put a battery-operated light source inside, so you could see the eyes better.
However, there was a lot of prep work before the project got to this point. I will backtrack so that you can see all of the steps that came between there and the current photo.
In the last blog post I had written about mounting the eyes onto the face. The next step was to add some eye lids so that the eyes did not have a wide-eyed open stare. I also reverse painted the areas of hot glue with a thin, translucent coat of white paint to mimic the whites of the eyes. Painting the glue cuts some of the light that was shining through and gives the eyes a more natural look.
Before attaching the face, I painted the interior of the pumpkin, the exterior ridge, and the back of the pumpkin's face. First, I painted the pumpkin's parts with two coats of Gesso. Then it was painted with two coats of black acrylic paint. I chose Mars Black. It dried to a shiny surface which will help reflect light. Sometimes I paint the insides of pumpkins a metallic gold. The metallic gold reflects a lot more light than the black. However, since this pumpkin is planned to be an indoor decoration, and its theme is mostly about the exterior of the face, I chose to go with the less expensive paint.
This is the photo of the painted interior of the pumpkin. Unfortunately, I forgot to get a picture of the back of the pumpkin's face. You can see that I also painted the ridge on the exterior of the pumpkin where the face will sit. This will not be seen when the pumpkin is completed. It was mainly painted to make sure that even the areas that will not be seen have some coverage to prevent moisture penetration in the future.
After all the black areas were painted and allowed to dry, they all received two coats of an exterior acrylic sealer. I used a soft brush for that so that I could get into any little nooks and crannies. This may have been a step that did not need to be taken considering that it will be an indoor project, but I try to build my projects so that they will last a long time.
With everything dry, it was time to add the face. Before doing anything with glue, I held the face on the pumpkin and made sure that it was on straight and not crooked. Then I marked some reference lines on the pumpkin and face with a Sharpie marker so that I would be able to get the face back to the same position when adding the glue.
I began mounting the face by putting dots of hot glue at the top, and center sides of the face. The black exterior ridge acts as a small shelf for the face to sit upon. I held the three dots of hot glue until they were cool enough to hold the head in place. As the face is not completely flush with the pumpkin, I added some hot glue to any areas that did not meet the pumpkin to give some added support.
After the hot glue, I covered the seam between the pumpkin and face with some masking tape. The seam looked a little rough, so I covered the seam with a small one fourth inch wide piece of cardboard from an old file folder. The cardboard was covered with another layer of tape. (Photo below on right.)
At this point, I am ready to start working on the exterior of the pumpkin. This is a good stopping point for this segment of the project for this blog post.
Regular reader may remember that I am currently working on two projects at the same time. I am also working on a carousel with the animal figures made of paper mâché. To keep from getting stale on either project, I have been switching back and forth between projects. The next few blog posts will be on making a Ram or some type of mountain goat for the carousel. After that, I will be back to blogging on the Green Man Pumpkin and showing how I made and attached the leaves.
Check back next week for the new post.
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