Squirrel O’Lanterns!

Every Halloween since 2009, I have carved a pumpkin using my squirrel fetish as an inspiration for the design.  I usually put these out on the porch to be admired by the small handful of kids who bother trick or treating in the poor neighborhoods anymore.  While I will humbly brush off any attempt by people to flatter my crudely drawn artwork… even I will admit I seem to have an uncanny knack for free styling some pretty awesome punkins.

Below is a complete history of the Squirrel O’Lantern….

2009:

A simple carving of the classically posed profile of a squirrel.  I like the glowing effect of this photo.

2010:

Changing it up on the previous design, I carved out the negative space in this year’s pumpkin.  Same idea, different effect.

2011:

Uhhhhh…. yeah, right.

2012:

I finally started getting really creative with my third squirrel o’lantern.  This one featuring an evil looking squirrel facing forward and holding an acorn…. or maybe a martini glass, depending on your perspective.  This one has a background with some creepy looking trees and Dr. Claw a cloud hovering over the moon!

2013:

Who says you can’t carve a unicorn into your pumpkin?  Due to Rainbow Donkey’s overwhelming popularity on my blog this year, I felt compelled to put him into the design… so here he is with witchy MBRS ready to trade in her broomstick for a really classy ride!

2014:

Yes, Buster doesn’t just die in my comics on a regular basis… I’ve also killed him off in a pumpkin carving as well.  I was hugely impressed with how this design of a squirrel cutting off Buster’s mangy little possum head came out… it’s a damn shame Halloween was on a Friday this year, which meant bowling, which meant I wasn’t home to show it off that evening…

2015:

What could be more sinister looking to have on your front porch than a Devil Squirrel?  Or make that “DVL SQRL” since that’s all I could fit inside his tail.  Hey, we all liked the game show Bumper Stumpers, didn’t we?  You may notice that only the bottom portion of the squirrel’s tail is actually connected to the pumpkin.. making this design extremely difficult to carve in detail with so many of the parts being suspended by small pumpkin isthmuses…

2016:

It’s zombie bunny squirrel returning from the grave to eat your brains!  It probably would have looked better had I been able to fit the tombstone where it would transition seamlessly into the bottom, but a floating stone just adds to the spooky nature of this squirrel o’lantern.  The raven turned out better than I thought it would, and the bat is pretty damned good itself for having to be carved without a sketch.  Also, all three sets of eyes and the RIP would have turned out better were they not so far off center so as to not fully glow…

2017:

Poor Rainbow Donkey just wanted to go out for an evening stroll, but gets stalked by five evil squirrels.  This was a hell of a hard design to cobble out on an extra large pumpkin, and the intricacy required to get all of the little squirrels to look just right led to a few oopsies.  That poor guy’s eye on the bottom!  But the result was worth the effort, and once again, The Nest makes Halloween all about the unicorn!

2018:

Just your basic, ordinary, average scary squirrel with a mean set of claws and a knife.  And maybe a slightly oversized head.  But I ventured outside the frame to carve scratch marks and made do with a pretty nasty pumpkin that was already turning mushy and forced me to carve on a downward facing side…

2019:

Apparently there was either an increased demand or a short supply of good sized pumpkins this year, completely gone from stores a week and a half before Halloween.  I was forced to settle for a smaller size, so I had a brainstorm and bought two of them coming up with “Trick” and “Treat.”  The work was tedious on the smaller pumpkins, and there’s obvious signs of rushing (especially on Treat), but these two side by side should look inviting on what was a very cold Halloween.

2020:

I went with a Zeeb a’ Lantern this year, featuring everyone’s favorite bloodthirsty little zebra looking over her handiwork of a knifed Buster.  A shocked squirrel was added to the right to take up space and keep the consistency of having a squirrel in all of these.  The last cut of this carving took off Zeeba’s tail, which is why it looks fractured, as I used a nail to re-attach it to her butt.  The blood dripping off the ceiling along with the word worked into the ground bring finish off the gory motif…

2021:

What’s scarier than one carved squirrel?  Four carved squirrels…. each one bigger than the next!  This was the first squirrel o’lantern I ever modified after seeing how it looked lit up… the bottom right squirrel looked too much like a conehead, so I had to carefully cut out a more defined brow to keep him from looking like a Klansquirrel.

2022:

Yin Yang squirrels anyone?  Yeah, I’m kinda running out of ideas, and this isn’t my best result (though to be fair, the lighting in this shot doesn’t do it justice).  Still, having the paws rest merely side by side turned out better than what I had originally planned… both squirrels clutching onto the same acorn.