Trading tips for gutting, transferring, and carving the real thing.
By Leslie
#54643
Hello All! I'm new here and I have a dilemma. And I thought, who better to ask than the experts? My nephew loves Thomas the Train and I was so excited to tell him I would be carving him a Thomas pumpkin! But, of course, he would have to ask in his cutuest, 4 year old way...."Will he be blue?" I normally only carve part of the way through the pumpkin but I can cut all the way through for this if needed. Use a blue light bulb, blue glow sticks???? Anyone have any sugguestions on how best to make Thomas blue? :? :?
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By SuperSonic
#54644
Before Howler went out of business there used to be tjhe Deluxe rainbow light.

It would turn blue, but the problem is it doesn't really show through on real kins (in my experience anyway).

However I have heard that glow sticks are efficeint when trying to light pumpkins. Get the longer lasting ones though.

Your best bet, and probably least costly, would be to use LED Christmas lights. They will shine quite well in real 'kins and foamies.

I'm sure others here share different oppinions, but that's my 2 cents.
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By nosferatu
#54649
If you can't get a blue light, you can use a normal light with some blue florist's film on the top.
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By matspud
#54653
I use a 2/3 Rainbow Howlers set on Blue. Worked well when I did Stitch. It might take a few blue glowsticks to show up well :?
Last edited by matspud on Thu Oct 13, 2011 4:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.
By GUS
#54656
Howler = out of business, BUT the same chap took his design & now running
Jack-o-lights, same lights different brandijng, check our howler thread for more info...(& links)

basically if you get what was the super deluxe morphing colour howler / jacko-light x2 & stick it on blue led "hold" ...cycle through colours till you get it, there are 3 modes of operation on it if it's remained exactly the same (around $5.99 US

where are you? as you neglected to mention location.
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By Chewy
#54679
I was thinking about this...

blue xmas lights would work - im actually planning on an animated lightshow using pumpkins, christmas lights and a christmas light controller for next years display (only what 380 days or so till next halloween!). The budget and appropriations committee shot me down this year (largely because were taking a trip instead...)

But...

for baking I have a set of paste food colouring. This stuff is insanely powerful & terribly difficult to get out of ones skin (trust me on this!).

I wonder if you might have some success with a combination of paste colouring and your shading work - and/or maybe a water miscible solvent to help carry the colour into the cellular structure? Havent tried it myself & cant speak for anyone's individual level of comfort / safety with flammable/hazardous solvents (you proceed at your own risk, as for me, im a trained professional) but, if it were me - i'd colour up some isopropanol or maybe acetone with some paste colouring & try staining the shaved areas with it. Id expect the areas where the skin is intact to resist colour - and the shaved areas to take at least *some* colour.

Might not be a bad experiment...

good luck
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By CombichristGirl
#54690
Chewy wrote: for baking I have a set of paste food colouring. This stuff is insanely powerful & terribly difficult to get out of ones skin (trust me on this!).

I wonder if you might have some success with a combination of paste colouring and your shading work - and/or maybe a water miscible solvent to help carry the colour into the cellular structure? Havent tried it myself & cant speak for anyone's individual level of comfort / safety with flammable/hazardous solvents (you proceed at your own risk, as for me, im a trained professional) but, if it were me - i'd colour up some isopropanol or maybe acetone with some paste colouring & try staining the shaved areas with it. Id expect the areas where the skin is intact to resist colour - and the shaved areas to take at least *some* colour.

Might not be a bad experiment...

good luck
thats what i was going to suggest lol
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By badgers
#54709
At a Dollar Store here they have the lights for those Christmas Village houses. They have them in single light or multiple light sets. They also have different colored lights to replace the clear bulbs the set comes with.
Just replace the clear bulb with the blue one(s).
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By Chewy
#54715
CombichristGirl wrote:
Chewy wrote: for baking I have a set of paste food colouring. This stuff is insanely powerful & terribly difficult to get out of ones skin (trust me on this!).

I wonder if you might have some success with a combination of paste colouring and your shading work - and/or maybe a water miscible solvent to help carry the colour into the cellular structure? Havent tried it myself & cant speak for anyone's individual level of comfort / safety with flammable/hazardous solvents (you proceed at your own risk, as for me, im a trained professional) but, if it were me - i'd colour up some isopropanol or maybe acetone with some paste colouring & try staining the shaved areas with it. Id expect the areas where the skin is intact to resist colour - and the shaved areas to take at least *some* colour.

Might not be a bad experiment...

good luck
thats what i was going to suggest lol
You know what they say about great minds.

Because i was curious - i did a little experimenting on one of the kins that my daughter dropped [d'oh!] using two different concentrations of royal blue wilton paste food colouring.

The first was relative weak - just a toothpick tip of paste in ~100ml of methyl hydrate (methanol). The second, more intense was done with a knife tip in about 5ml of same.

All I need know is for the patch master to do that smurf pattern i was asking for!

LOL

First solution, the food colour & the result...

Image

I shoudl get a shading tool eventually - used a strawberry huller to gouge it out, doesnt really show the penetration

Image

second solution - much more intense, this shot also shows some of the penetration (if you look closely - about 2mm on average)

Image

Sliver i hacked off after staining with the second solution - shows penetration depth better

Image

I couldnt find any more aggressive solvents here to try - may or may not do a little more experimenting later.

Hope this gives the OP an idea about what they might achieve.

I wonder though what it woudl look like lit up. An experiment for tomorrow night maybe.
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By Euri
#54716
I've often wondered abou that and how well it would work on staining the shaved parts of kins. What I wonder is how well the blue color shows up on the kin when it's lit. Have you tried that? I'd love to the results of that. Of course coloring it this way means that it can be equally impressive displayed in the daytime.
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By Raven
#54720
I was going to suggest the single Christmas lights they use in the villages also. They are cheap at the dollar store and you should have no trouble finding a blue light to go in it since all the craft stores are filled with christmas things already. Of course this would mean you would need an outlet to plug into. My next choice would be the glow sticks.
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By snow2alike
#54763
I had the same problem with a University of Kentucky pumpkin. I tried a blue light --- but when the yellow insides mixed with the blue light I got a rather sickly looking pale teal. Not what I wanted at all.

I went to the Hobby store and bought a sheet of blue velum (linda like plastic paper you can see thru) and put it behind the carved area and when it was lit --- it glowed blue.
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By staticfurball
#54765
CombichristGirl wrote:
Chewy wrote: for baking I have a set of paste food colouring. This stuff is insanely powerful & terribly difficult to get out of ones skin (trust me on this!).

I wonder if you might have some success with a combination of paste colouring and your shading work - and/or maybe a water miscible solvent to help carry the colour into the cellular structure? Havent tried it myself & cant speak for anyone's individual level of comfort / safety with flammable/hazardous solvents (you proceed at your own risk, as for me, im a trained professional) but, if it were me - i'd colour up some isopropanol or maybe acetone with some paste colouring & try staining the shaved areas with it. Id expect the areas where the skin is intact to resist colour - and the shaved areas to take at least *some* colour.

Might not be a bad experiment...

good luck
thats what i was going to suggest lol
The only problem I would see with this method is the ,due to the texture of pumpkin flesh , you might not get an even colour as it sets in but that could be used to your advantage if you want to ad a sort of texture to it.

blue lights would enhance this too. i like the LED christmas blue because they are sooo much more vibrant and they dont get hot.
By GUS
#54773
folks. if you want deep colour in this instnace then before you use another sheet of coloured cellophane or similar consider the "bounce back of colour" rather than absorption.

Takes me back to another old thread on painting inners of funkins.

recommend if you cannot get multiple howler / jacko's you line the kin out with white paper to pick up & enhance the blue somewhat.

if you have a small pumpkin try to get hold of a white swimming cap to avoid a creased look inside the kin.