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In case the fan art wasn’t already an indication, here is further evidence of my addiction to Destiny 2. In fact, I would wager these pumpkin carvings have been my claim to fame within the Destiny 2 community. Through these annual carvings, I’ve received thousands of likes on Twitter and Reddit, and earned three artist emblems from the community managers.
I don’t know if I’ll continue carving these beyond The Final Shape, but only time will tell. Either way, thanks, Guardians, for letting me carve these silly little pumpkins for you 🙂
Appropriately named, “The Final God of Pain,” Nezarec is the final boss of the Destiny 2: Lightfall raid, Root of Nightmares. The main feature of Nezarec’s design is his massive, sweeping horns, which rise up to a straight point at the top of his head. Recreating this design on a pumpkin was quite challenging, as the naturally spherical pumpkin would tend to sweep them back. I tried carving the pumpkin as evenly as I could so they would look straight from the front, and carved the curving angles alongside his head in relief. To finish his design, I gently carved out his seven icon eyes and lit them from behind for maximum effect.
I kept the scale of Nezarec’s overall pumpkin carving reduced compared to previous years. I wanted to finish this carving within a reasonable amount of time, as well as focus on the larger details because the minute ones do not translate well to fruit. Still, this pumpkin was a challenge to translate to photography, as bright lighting from within and dark relief carving without created an exposure nightmare. True to his name, Nezarec really was a pain to carve and capture on digital film.
Rhulk, First Disciple of the Witness, is the boss of the Destiny 2: The Witch Queen raid, Vow of the Disciple. I wanted to try something different with this pumpkin by carving his full body in relief, framed by a section of the Upended boss arena in which you fight him. The minute details were a challenge to implement on soft gourd flesh.
The image here shows the pumpkin carving photo comped into a scene of the final boss arena. The boss arena image was provided by Mike Poe, Senior Art Lead at Bungie.
Taniks, the Abomination is the raid boss of the Destiny 2: Beyond Light raid, Deep Stone Crypt. To mimic the appearance of his scrappy Fallen helmet, I used wooden dowels to pin pieces of pumpkin exterior to the carved flesh. Orange lights were inserted into the eyes from within, giving them Taniks’ iconic orange glow. Four miniature pumpkins were placed around Taniks to imitate the heavy shank impellers he uses in the final boss encounter.
I comped a photo of the pumpkin carving onto an in-game screenshot of the final boss encounter arena in Photoshop to bring this carving to life.
Emperor Calus is boss of the Leviathan raid from Destiny 2. Leviathan is the first raid in Destiny 2. Due to the delay of the Beyond Light expansion in Destiny 2, there was no new raid boss to make a pumpkin carving of in 2020, meaning I needed to go back in time and pick an older raid boss.
Calus was the perfect option to carve a pumpkin from, not only because his Cabal flesh is already yellow-orange. His fleshy jowls and wrinkly face lent themselves well to the carving process. I had already explored using pumpkin seeds as teeth when carving Riven the previous year, and utilized them well in the Calus carving.
The first image shows a photo of the Calus pumpkin carving comped into a screenshot I took of an area aboard the Leviathan ship (specifically the Tribute Hall). The second image utilizes a lot of Photoshop work to mimic the Psionic dimension, where I giant, ghostly version of Calus’s head looms over the players.
The Sanctified Mind is the boss of the Destiny 2: Shadowkeep raid, Garden of Salvation. After the success of the previous year’s pumpkin carving, I decided to go all out on this pumpkin carving—to detrimental effect. Even though I learned much during this experience, this carving took way too much time, and was ultimately poorer for the level of effort.
The Sanctified Mind is an extremely complex and organically shaped Vex with special light effects and protrusions. I attempted to imitate those effects with etched acrylic that was warped into shape. The boss battle takes place on a lake of Vex radiolaria, which I recreated with a glass table with a translucent covering, lit from underneath with cool white rope lights.
Back to where it all began. The first pumpkin I decided to carve into a Destiny 2 raid boss was Riven of a Thousand Voices from the Forsaken raid, Last Wish. I was babysitting my niece and nephew for a weekend before Halloween, and decided to entertain them by carving pumpkins together. Since I was enjoying playing the Forsaken expansion, and I was eager to play the new raid, I decided to turn my pumpkin into the raid boss.
The fleshy, organic features of Riven’s face lent themselves well to pumpkin carving, and I used the exterior surface of the pumpkin to suggest the hard, bony plates that cover her face. The open plates framing her face were carved from a secondary pumpkin and secured in place with wooden dowels. This wish dragon needed teeth, however, and that’s when I decided to try using the pumpkin’s own seeds to emulate them. Pumpkin flesh is moist, so using a glue or adhesive of any kind is out of the question. Instead, I pierced the backs of the seeds with trimmed toothpicks, and stuck them into the pumpkin’s fleshy jaws. I added a traditional jack-o’-lantern candle to give this dragon her fiery breath, and she was complete.
When I posted this pumpkin carving to social media, I was not expecting a ton of exposure. I had carved it for fun on a weekend while watching my niblings. Instead, the posts on Twitter and Reddit had gone viral, with thousands of interactions on both platforms, direct responses of excitement and appreciation from the developers, and an article written about this pumpkin on GameRant. The overwhelming response had encouraged me to continue carving pumpkins as an annual tradition to celebrate the in-game Halloween event every year alongside hundreds of other talented artists from the Destiny 2 community.
© 2024 Kate Frana. All Rights Reserved.