Drawing Pumpkin Faces

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Here you can learn drawing pumpkin faces, as well as how to draw a pumpkin itself.

First let's take a look how we can draw a pumpkin and then how to draw a simple face on it.
Afterwards we'll jump into the fun of creating all sorts of different faces.

1. How to Draw a Pumpkin:


Start by drawing a broad lying oval. Divide it in the middle with a vertical line. Think of this oval as a pumpkin without skin.

Then draw a thin standing oval over the middle line. This is the first section of the pumpkin's skin. Make it flat at the top and the bottom. Also let its top and bottom reach slightly over the lying oval's sides.


Add two more skin sections at the sides of the first one.
Note that the lines for them don't start at the very top of the first skin section. Instead they start a bit lower and reach slightly upwards first, before they curve downwards. The same is inversely true for the bottom.
Continue to add such skin parts at the sides and make them gradually narrower, until you reach the edge of the pumpkin.


And this is what the finished pumpkin looks like, when the underlying lines are erased (if you are drawing already, don't erase the middle line, because we need it in the next step again).

2. Tips for Drawing a Face on the Pumpkin:


A vertical middle line is a very useful reference to draw the pumpkin face symmetrically.
Also sketch in two horizontal lines, between which you'll draw the eyes.
This helps you a lot to give the same size and shape to both eyes.
With your reference lines set up, you can then draw in the face.


Now, "cut out" eyes and mouth by erasing the lines of the pumpkin skin inside of them.
Then you can draw in additional details like pupils and teeth.

3. Drawing the Pumpkin's Stem:

A nice stem can give your pumpkin a much more interesting look, and it is fairly easy to draw.



Start by drawing two hooks for both sides of the stem's base.
Then draw the shape of the stem growing out of them.
Make it a bit thinner towards the top.
You can break it off at the end with a zigzag line.
Note that the tips of the hooks are still visible and stick slightly into the stem's shape.


Add a few more curved hooks along the stem's bottom.
Then draw a line from the top of each hook flowing upwards into the stem, following its bending direction.


Tada!
With that your pumpkin is finished.
It looks much better with a stem, doesn't it?

This is a general step by step process how you can draw a whole pumpkin with face.

4. Coloring the Pumpkin:

There are two ways coming to my mind how you can color your pumpkin:



The left pumpkin preserves the cartoon-like look of the pumpkin face.
To create such an effect on a real pumpkin, you'd have to remove the skin from the pupils and teeth, so that the white pumpkin flesh below is visible.

The right pumpkin shows what it looks like when you just cut out the shapes without removing any skin. It has quite a different look, doesn't it?
So try out what works best for your pumpkin faces.

Now, that the general lessons about drawing pumpkin faces are taught, we get into the creative part: drawing pumpkin faces in many different styles!

5. The Pumpkin-Face-Table

Gather ideas for possible shapes of eyes, pupils, mouth, nose and teeth, and sketch them into a table.
Let your imagination run wild and jot down everything that comes to mind.
Then look at your table afterwards and you will see a lot of possible combinations. You will get much more ideas than you would have thought about, if you had drawn a single face on the pumpkin right away.
And with just one table you can then create thousands of different cool looking pumpkin faces.



This table is just a suggestion. You can expand it by your own ideas.

And now I show you how quickly you can create many different, good looking pumpkin faces just by using such a table.

Here are a few examples:

The Wizard:


Magical eyes and a wide open mouth are great for The Pumpkin Wizard. Teeth, pupils or nose would just distract here.
Without them this pumpkin face looks much more mysterious.

You can have fun with the pumpkin's stem and draw it fitting to the face.
In this case I made the stem very thin towards the top, to give it the appearance of a typical wizard's hat.

The Owl:



Just using the down pointing triangle for a nose and drawing in no mouth makes this pumpkin look like a bird. The triangle seems to be its beak.
The big, rounded, evil eyes look like that of an owl, and the moon-shaped pupils are another reference to something that flies through the night skies.

The pupils are drawn at the bottom of the eyes, and not at the top, like it is shown in the table. You can do this for almost all pupils, if it fits better to your pumpkin face.

Here I made the stem very splintered to give it the appearance of a bunch of bristly feathers. I actually know no owl with a headdress like that, but it adds to the bird-like look of this pumpkin face.

The Skull:


This pumpkin is the very face of death.
Empty, staring skull sockets, a human-like opening for the nose, and a jagged zigzag mouth remind us of the grim reaper.

I had no special idea for the stem here.
Perhaps I should have given its upper end the shape of a bone?
After all, if you would cut a pumpkin like that, you could easily carve the stem into such a shape.

The Archfiend:



For this pumpkin I really used everything the table had to give!
Vicious eyes, small and narrow pupils, a wide open mouth, sharp fangs, a beast-like nose and a serpent tongue, truly turning this one into an absolute archfiend.
The tongue was colored in red in the left version, to let it stand out clearly among the teeth. On a real pumpkin you could easily do that with a bit of paint, too.

You see the advantage of this method for drawing pumpkin faces.
Once you have the table set up, you can go crazy drawing pumpkin faces! The possibilities are endless.
And you will come up with a lot of amazing pumpkin designs.