Jesse guessed this would take me 10 hours.
After taking off the stencil/transfer paper. Holy shit look at this. This is usually about the time when I want to cry and give up
3 hours in. I was so freaking scared to start because honestly I didn't really know what I was doing with those tools. They made the carving go a LOT faster/smoother, but so much easier to make mistakes. This is also around the point where I gave up trying to follow the template EXACTLY (and getting super frustrated with it) and just decided to pretty much freehand it. Buying that light bulb cord was the smartest pumpkin carving decision I've ever made.
Finished! I had to do a little reconstructive pen surgery on his pupil, because I butchered it trying to carve a circle that small.
The details are a little easier to see with higher contrast
You can probably tell, but I tooootally gave up on his armor. I still haven't figured out how people get that super clean layered/multi-shaded look. Oh well, maybe next year.