VGS Pumpkin Carving Contest 2022 [ENDED]

[ZeldaFreak | 3,600]

@bag@darkchylde28@drxandy@JamesRobot@jonebone@Kguillemette@Krunch@LutherDestroysTheGond@Makar@Mega Tank@NESfiend@RegularGuyGamer@Renmauzo@SailorScoutMandy

1ST PLACE WINNER
BAG

2ND PLACE WINNER
JAMESROBOT

3RD PLACE WINNER
MAKAR

------------------------

Heya folks! Sorry, meant to get to this earlier, but... well, I had one hell of a day to put it lightly, haha.

So, now that the voting has concluded, JamesRobot and bag are tied for 1st place, and SailorScoutMandy and Makar are tied for 3rd place, respectively. As such, here's the solution I've come up with to (hopefully) resolve the ties:
SUDDEN DEATH VOTING!

A couple new polls have been added. From now until 11/13/2022 at 6 AM EST, just about 48 hours from now, you all may vote for which carving you all like most between specifically JR and bag's, and which carving you all like most between Makar & Mandy's. This is the tiebreaker vote! Or, well, votes in this case.
Now, in the event that at the end of that voting period there's STILL a tie/both are still tied, I'll get myself and a few other members of staff together (an odd amount, to ensure a tie cannot still happen) and we'll discuss which ones are overall our favorites between the tied carvings, and pick the winners that way. I considered simply flipping a coin, but even in this case I'd prefer not to leave it up to random chance if I can help it.

I'd ask that @JamesRobot and @bag refrain from voting in the poll between their own carvings, and same goes for @SailorScoutMandy and @Makarfor their carvings, however you guys can of course vote in the other polls, so JR and bag can vote in the poll between Makar and Mandy's carvings, and vice versa.
Anyway, that's about it, hopefully after this we'll finally have some clear winners, and I'll finally be able to dish out some prizes!
(Also sorry about all the pings again, but we gotta decide on the winners here!)

Also, real quick, while I have your attention, I added a THIRD new poll, since I wanted to get your guys' opinions on something: For future pumpkin carving contests, should I allow more than just carvings? As in, other types of decorated pumpkins, such as painted pumpkins. For this year I wanted to keep things fairly simple and allow only actual carvings to count for the contest itself, but I wanted to get some opinions on allowing things beyond specifically carvings for future contests, since I know some people, particularly a couple members of staff, expressed interest in doing that. Let me know, and feel free to discuss this in general outside of voting in the poll itself!

Anyway, as another quick reminder to you all, here are the carvings you're all choosing between for the tiebreaker polls:

1ST PLACE TIEBREAKER

bag

Spoiler

JamesRobot

Spoiler

3RD PLACE TIEBREAKER

Makar

Spoiler

SailorScoutMandy

Spoiler

------------------------

The voting has begun! Please everyone vote for your personal favorite carving of the bunch! As a reminder, the only rules here are that you can only vote for one carving, and you CANNOT vote for your own carving, you must vote for someone else's! The poll will be open until 11/10/2022 at 12 AM EST. Whoever gets the most votes will win $25, 2nd most votes $20, 3rd most votes $15.

Here are everyone's submissions. 14 in total, very happy with how many of you participated this year:

bag:

Spoiler

darkchylde28:

Spoiler

drxandy:

Spoiler

JamesRobot:

Spoiler

jonebone:

Spoiler

Kguillemette:

Spoiler

Krunch:

Spoiler

LutherDestroysTheGond:

Spoiler

Makar:

Spoiler

Mega Tank:

Spoiler

NESfiend:

Spoiler

RegularGuyGamer:

Spoiler

Renmauzo:

Spoiler

SailorScoutMandy:

Spoiler

@Gloves@Jicsan@DefaultGen@RH@Splain@TDIRunner@Avgn Gamer@Mega Tank@Gaia Gensouki@darkchylde28@LutherDestroysTheGond@ZeldaFan042@drxandy@Aguy@JamesRobot@nesmaster14@spacepup@RegularGuyGamer@doner24@Richardhead@Kguillemette@DoctorEncore@Shino@Psychobear85@bag@Nintegageo@Br81zad@Strikezone1@a3quit4s@jonebone@SailorScoutMandy

Welcome everyone, to the first annual

VGS Pumpkin Carving Contest!

I hope you're all in the Halloween spirit!

The rules of this event are very very simple: If you'd like to participate, submit an image of a pumpkin carving you've done in this thread. Just an image will do, but feel free to explain the process by which you made the carving, how you decided on the design, etc!

The pumpkin carving can be any design you wish, and the pumpkin itself can be any size and variety you wish. The only stipulations are as follow:

1. The carving must be done on an actual pumpkin.
2. You must have been the one to have done the carving itself.
3. It must be a carving you made this month, October of 2022. As such, if you've already made a carving this month, but before this event started, feel free to submit it as it will still count.
4. You may submit a different carving if you've already submitted a carving, however this will replace the previous carving you submitted, meaning you can only have one carving count for the contest at a time.

This event will last from now until 11/2/2022 at 12 AM EST, a little over 1 week from now. Once we make it past that deadline, that'll be the cutoff point for new submissions. Immediately afterwards, a poll will be added to this thread, which will last from 11/2/2022 to 11/10/2022 at 12 AM EST, once again a little over a week. In this poll, anyone will get to vote on which carving is their personal favorite, and everyone will get to discuss the carvings that were submitted. The only rules here are that you can only vote for a single carving, and it cannot be your own carving, it must be someone else's. I'll be keeping an eye on the votes to make sure none of you try to vote for your own carving!

After the deadline, the poll will be closed and no new votes will be accepted. Once this happens, the votes will be tallied up, and prizes will be dealt out to the people who's carvings received the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd most votes, respectively. The prizes up for grabs are as follows:

1st place:  $25 amazon gift card or cash equivalent
2nd place:  $20 amazon gift card or cash equivalent
3rd place:  $15 amazon gift card or cash equivalent

As an extra little bonus, here's a Sage carving stencil! Feel free to utilize it for your carving in any way you please.

If any of you don't know how to carve a pumpkin, there are plenty of tutorials online to help you out, but the general basic steps are as follows:

• Select your pumpkin
• Cut off the top of it
• Scoop out the gunk on the inside, making it hollow
• Print out a stencil of the design you want, and tape it on to the side of the pumpkin (or use a marker to manually draw the stencil)
• Carve out the design you want, utilizing the stencil
• Put a candle inside the pumpkin, light it
• Put the top back on
• Done!

Good luck, and I hope you all have fun! Remember that there are real prizes on the line here, so try your best!

(I used a really tiny pumpkin this year for carving, which turned out to be a mistake since it made precise carving a lot more difficult, which is why this one looks a little funky, haha. Sorry for butchering your art @CasualCart)

[Mega Tank | 960]

Mega Tank's 2022 Pumpkin Contest Submission

Stranger Things' The Mind Flayer

I generally don't like to revisit themes I have done, but I might have to make the exception with Stranger Things.

Edited October 31, 2022 by Mega Tank

[ZeldaFreak | 3,600]

Also, if anyone would like to not be pinged for future events like this, just let me know and I'll remove you from the list! For this one I'm just pinging everyone who participated or expressed interest in this year's VGS Bingo, and people who have shown off carvings they've done in past jack-o-lantern threads on VGS since I figured you guys in particular might be interested in this!

[LutherDestroysTheGond | 690]

Did this over the weekend with the family 

[ZeldaFreak | 3,600]

7 minutes ago, LutherDestroysTheGond said:

Did this over the weekend with the family 

That's our first entry, that was very quick! Like I said, any carvings you guys have already done this month, October of 2022, will still count. I personally like to wait until closer to Halloween for carvings, but I know some of you guys like to do them a bit earlier and I didn't want to screw you guys over, so I figured that would be a good rule to add

[Gloves | 11,771]

@ZeldaFreak would you accept painted pumpkins? My wife and I usually paint pumpkins rather than carve, as I buy the smaller pumpkins which are generally better for making pie.

[Kguillemette | 1,544]

Okay, cool. I was planning on carving a pumpkin tomorrow anyway. I'll just take a picture when I'm done and post it up then.

[ZeldaFreak | 3,600]

19 minutes ago, Gloves said:

@ZeldaFreak would you accept painted pumpkins? My wife and I usually paint pumpkins rather than carve, as I buy the smaller pumpkins which are generally better for making pie.

Normally I would, but seeing as how there are actual prizes for this, I'm gonna be a bit more stringent with the rules and say no, it must be an actual carving. Could always carve this year, switch it up a little bit! I've got a pumpkin carving kit I can loan out to you guys if you want, haha.

[TDIRunner | 2,731]

I always look forward to carving a pumpkin and I hadn't gotten around to it yet this year, so this will be a good motivator to getting it done.  

 

[JamesRobot | 5,793]

Aw hell yeah.

I'm carving this weekend.

[darkchylde28 | 1,546]

I never got around to getting one for myself, but I carved the kids' pumpkins this evening.  The cat was my son's design (save the ears, that was my contribution), but I did all the carving.  My daughter decided last second that she wanted a bunny, so I did what I could on the fly, and I think it came out good, all things considered.  Not the typical, traditional design(s) that I would normally have carved and displayed, but the underage crowd was happy, so that's what counts.

Edited November 1, 2022 by darkchylde28

[guillavoie | 1,208]

Patiently waiting for JamesRobot's winning entry.

[ZeldaFreak | 3,600]

Just now, guillavoie said:

Patiently waiting for JamesRobot's winning entry.

Wouldn't surprise me, but we'll see!

[Gloves | 11,771]

34 minutes ago, ZeldaFreak said:

Normally I would, but seeing as how there are actual prizes for this, I'm gonna be a bit more stringent with the rules and say no, it must be an actual carving. Could always carve this year, switch it up a little bit! I've got a pumpkin carving kit I can loan out to you guys if you want, haha.

I certainly don't want to win any monetary prizes, only a charm and to participate. But I understand. 

[ZeldaFreak | 3,600]

4 minutes ago, Gloves said:

I certainly don't want to win any monetary prizes, only a charm and to participate. But I understand. 

Oh yeah, I understand, I'm just saying in general with events that have actual prizes I'm going to be more strict about the rules than I'd normally be. I probably should have worded that better, haha.

And hey, to be fair, the carving doesn't have to be a masterpiece or anything for you to still participate, could just be your stereotypical jack-o-lantern spooky face design and that'd still count if you're just looking to participate

[Link | 2,709]

1 hour ago, ZeldaFreak said:

I've got a pumpkin carving kit I can loan out to you guys if you want, haha.

Pretty sure it would take more than the week or two before the deadline to ship that from you to him  

[ZeldaFreak | 3,600]

14 minutes ago, Link said:

Pretty sure it would take more than the week or two before the deadline to ship that from you to him  

Not if I pay like $100 for shipping!

[darkchylde28 | 1,546]

Not that I plan to do so, but would it still count if an artificial pumpkin was used for the carving?  All the various craft stores around me carry these hard foam pumpkins that look relatively real and are meant for both decoration as-is as well as carving.  Figured I'd throw this out there in case there was anyone who was interested in participating but not thrilled with the potential mess that a real pumpkin creates and/or would want to hang onto their creation a little more permanently.

[ZeldaFreak | 3,600]

23 minutes ago, darkchylde28 said:

Not that I plan to do so, but would it still count if an artificial pumpkin was used for the carving?  All the various craft stores around me carry these hard foam pumpkins that look relatively real and are meant for both decoration as-is as well as carving.  Figured I'd throw this out there in case there was anyone who was interested in participating but not thrilled with the potential mess that a real pumpkin creates and/or would want to hang onto their creation a little more permanently.

Yup, artificial pumpkins would count! As far as I'm aware they're not necessarily significantly easier to carve than a real pumpkin, they just cause less of a mess and obviously last much longer, so I see no reason not to allow them.

[ZeldaFreak | 3,600]

Just now, ZeldaFreak said:

Yup, artificial pumpkins would count! As far as I'm aware they're not necessarily significantly easier to carve than a real pumpkin, they just cause less of a mess and obviously last much longer, so I see no reason not to allow them.

Though I will say that an impressive design might be more impressive on a real pumpkin than an artificial one, which could factor in to how the voting goes so do keep that in mind

[Nintegageo | 582]

OoOo awesome!

[drxandy | 3,225]

Mines on the left, Mandy in the middle and my best friend Nick on the right. Went freehand this year woo woo

[SailorScoutMandy | 782]

1 hour ago, drxandy said:

Mines on the left, Mandy in the middle and my best friend Nick on the right. Went freehand this year woo woo

Haha I was just about to upload that

[Estil | 1,264]

What if all I can afford is a squash?   I guess you can't have a Squash O'Lantern...that'd be hella stupid!  

"Cut off the top of it...Scoop out the gunk on the inside, making it hollow"

Awww!!!  I didn't know we had to kill it!

 

Edited October 26, 2022 by Estil

[JamesRobot | 5,793]

1 hour ago, Estil said:

you can't have a Squash O'Lantern...that'd be hella stupid!

You're just hella jealous.