Halloween Pumpkin Tutorial

Halloween is coming!! This year I’ve had the time to make a pair of chocolate modellings for the occasion, which makes me really happy (you know, I’m just in love with gore and creepy things!).

This year I didn’t want to make a Halloween fondant cake and I preferred to do this modelling chocolate tutorial. For this occasion, I made the chocolate myself using the recipe available on my blog. You can check it out, if you want. It’s simple and economic.

Before starting with the step by step, I want to tell you that for this cake I used porexpan pieces on the inside of the modelling, but you can actually use real cake. You just have to make different layers of cake, fill them, cut the shape of the pumpkin and cover with a great coat of ganache.

¿WHAT DO I NEED TO MAKE THIS HALLOWEEN PUMPKIN?

2kg of white modelling chocolate
Progel colorants: Sunflower, Eucalyptus and Ruby
300gr of crushed Oreo cookies
Basic modelling tools
1 cake base (25cm diameter)
1m of black satin ribbon (2cm width)
Silicone gun and silicone rods
1 porexpan egg
1 porexpan circle
Different brushes
Painting palette

STEP BY STEP TUTORIAL

Before starting with the modelling, first you must prepare the eyes. To do so, make 2 balls with 9gr of flower paste and let them rest for 24 hours. Paint them and let dry. In the meantime, glue a porexpan circle with a porexpan egg using the silicone gun. put a little bit of modelling chocolate to hold the eyes. Note that you shouldn’t keep facial human proportions in order to make a funny face. In this case, the eyes are closer together, almost crossed, and the nose and the mouth are bigger than usual. In fantasy faces, the imagination is served.

The most important thing at the beginning of the modelling is to create the necessary volume for getting the original shape of what we want to model. In this case, you must swell the base of the pumpkin and put modelling chocolate on the cheeks.

Continue to put modelling chocolate in order to get the desired shape. You must keep in mind that the eyes are the deepest part of the face, so you should put enough chocolate so that the eyes stay sunken.

As you will see, modelling a face isn’t an exact step-by-step, because it’s not possible to finish with one part of the face before the other. They’re all connected and you must give it shape as a whole little by little. On this step, you should define the right place of the nose and the right size of the mouth.

Once you’ve defined all the face parts, outline the mouth and the cheeks. By doing it, you’ll be able to frame the mouth and structure said face parts.

Smooth the mouth with some water. Seize the occasion to make the wrinkles of the double chin, which will allow you to frame the face and distinguish the face from the pumpkin skin.

In order to finish the eyes, first you need to cover them with the eyelids. Cover the upper eyelid first, then the lower. Join both pieces with the rest of the face and smooth the joints.

Once you’ve covered the eyes, you’ll realize that you’re going to need more modelling chocolate in order to conceal the eyes and to make the forehead and the eyebrows. Put the chocolate above the eyes. In addition, you should add a bit more chocolate to the cheeks to complete shaping the face.

Finish making the expression wrinkles. You will have to thrust the modelling tool into the paste and then cut any chocolate excess. You really need to round out the wrinkles. Right angles don’t look very natural.

After smoothing the whole face, make the nostrils. Notice that nostrils aren’t rounded, but elongated and kind of arrowy, being the smallest part at the tip of the nose.

Before putting the skin of the pumpkin, it’s really important to smooth the chocolate correctly. In order to put the skin, stretch some pieces of modelling chocolate, make a straight cut on one side and stick it to the sides of the face.

Make the stem of the pumpkin and the stretch marks with the help of a knife. The skin can be irregular, as it’s going to be texturized later.

Add textures with a Dresden tool (you’ll need enough patience, as it takes a long time to texturize the whole pumpkin).

I always paint my modellings by layers. So first, you should apply a layer of the base color by diluting the Sunflower ProGel colorant with some alcohol.

Next, use the Eucalyptus ProGel mixed with white powder colorant and alcohol to give a first layer of color to the skin of the pumpkin.

In order to add some shades, use more green colorant on the wrinkles. Blur with a dry brush.

It’s really important to add shades to the pumpkin; this way you will be able to highlight the volume of the wrinkles, eyes, eyebrows and cheeks. Put a bit of green colorant and blur it to integrate it to the pumpkin color.

Glue the satin ribbon to the cake base (the ribbon must be wider than the base) and pour the crushed Oreos into the base, covering it entirely.

If you want to give the cake a fun touch, make a little worm and put it on the tip of the nose. Paint it green and add a Ruby touch to it.

I’m aware that making a tutorial on how to model a face with chocolate, as simple as said face may be, is a difficult task, because creating a 3D shape requires of constant retouches. All the same, I hope it helps you to lose the fear of modelling with chocolate.