These Pumpkins Will Eat Ya, Charlie Brown!

Last week we shared our 3D Print idea for the office Halloween Pumplin contest so let’s see how things have progressed.

So when we don’t send our prints out to resident painter, Kimmy Utah, we bear down and try to paint some of the prints ourselves here in sunny Arizona. And when we muster up enough courage, it’s always via the slap chop/Speedpaints method. However, we just saw a recent video by brilliant Dana Howl where she talks about the new method called raw chop. We winced at using airbrush primer but liked the quality white paint suggestion.

The rumors are indeed true: a slap-chop base followed by Army Speedpaints can absolutely make any novice painter a happy camper. And what’s especially cool here is those darker chop spots helped make our pumpkins look like the buggers just popped up from the soil.

The specific Army Painter paints and steps stayed pretty true to our original plan:

• Pumpkin: Fire Giant Orange
• Tongue: Purple Alchemy
• Teeth: Pallid Bone
• Eye: Blood Red
• Stalk: Malignant Green
• Base: Americana Burnt Umber
• Finish: Assorted Flock

While thrilled with the paint scheme, we were a bit bummed by the bases.

The base on Teirale’s free pumpkin mimic STL is pretty tight and quite smooth. So, that burnt umber ground cover went on with a bit of a thud. We certainly could have used AKI Muddy Ground or Vallejo Earth Texture. However, we went to our flock box to help us get the best seasonal fall effect.

What’s the best thing about using flock over paint and textures? It’s really, really hard to screw it up! Plus, there is just so much variety out there for you to choose from – rocks, moss, sand, trees, dirt, and of course…leaves. Just a couple of sprinkles here and there and whammo – you got yourself a fall to remember, Charlie Brown!

We still have to show you how we incorporated our 3D prints into the pumpkin itself but we’ll save that for Halloween!