Hello everyone, and welcome to another thing Arquebus made for a Spiral Knights making-things contest! This time, it’s a Howlitzer, and it’s made out of pumpkins. Spooky! If you're lame and just want to skip to the final products, head straight to the bottom.

I began my quest at Cal Poly Pomona’s annual Pumpkin Festival, where a football-field-sized swath of open land (of which they have many) was converted to a massive pumpkin patch. With idea firmly in mind, I tromped hither and yon til at last I found these two beauties. Weeks pass, and Halloween grows closer. I decide on the 30th that today shall be the day, since the contest ends soon, and the pumpkin shouldn’t be all smooshy and gross when the big night rolls around.

I mark up the head, the most complex bit of the project, and get to work with a knife. A good amount of the head pumpkin gets hacked off to form the skull, which is in turn cut in half to make the upper and lower jaws. Since I have the room to do so, I do the initial gut-extraction work with a knife to ease the later spoon-hollowing. The top of the skull comes out pretty well. I put it all together to see how it will look, and am pleased by the results. The body comes together in a simple and not very visually interesting way.

Now that I’ve done the carving, I take a break for LUNCH TIME! Pasta salad, woo!

Not content to just let knives have all the fun, I bring out my trusty dremel. I think ahead and improvise a splatter guard from a little paper plate, which was definitely a good idea. Another good idea was the use of sunglasses, which are like splatter guards for your eyes (look at that splatter!). Always use eye protection, kids; pumpkin mist is the least of your worries when working with power tools!

At this point, a wandering Mewkat became very interested in what I was doing, and sat down by the door to watch me for the rest of the project.

Once I had suitably engraved everything, it was time for some structure. I had noticed in carving the pumpkin that the left side of the face was still green, and thus very soft and penetrable. This would be a boon to a less ambitious pumpkin carver, but my needs required stiffness and strength. To this end, I applied some creative wire bending techniques. I also added a hinge to the jaw, which allowed it to open and close if I so chose, prose expose nose hose.

Unfortunately, at this point, the weird weight distribution of the pumpkin and the awkwardness inherent in bending wire meant that Mr. Howlitzer keeps falling, and he can’t get up. Fortunately, I was able to chain him to a helpful flower pot, which kept him suitably upright. This precluded adding the horns I had planned; fortunately, hornless howlitzers do exist in Tier 1, so it’s not too bad. I cleaned up, washed the pumpkin out of my hair, and waited for it to get dark.

Here’s the FINAL PRODUCT in a few lit and unlit forms! And as a super incredible bonus, IT SHOOTS BULLETS!