The BIOSHOCK Big Daddy Jack-o'-Lantern

Last year for Halloween I carved two Jack-o'-Lanterns: one of U.S. Presidential candidate Ron Paul and another of larcenous school board member Ron Price. The Ron Paul pumpkin garnered some "oohs and ahhhs" on the Internet and local schookids came by in droves to look and laugh at Ron Price's visage carved large and orange.

So... what was I going to do this year?

I juggled around lots of concepts, and in the end decided that I wanted to take a shot at doing Big Daddy from the video game BioShock. Here it is after two hours of work...

In BioShock, Big Daddies are the protectors of the Little Sisters (click here for the Big Daddy entry at the BioShock Wiki). They used to be human, before radical gene therapy took away their minds. Their skin was then flayed-off and the bare flesh steam-sealed to old-fashioned diving suits. The result was a horrific monstrosity that would roam the underwater city of Rapture, defending the Little Sisters to the death. As a result of the wild success of BioShock, the Big Daddy has become one of the most iconic monsters of the modern era. Suffice it say, you also have to fight these armored freaks quite often in the game.

And here's the Jack-o'-Lantern fully lit...

Yeah, I messed up the "H" in "BioShock" (the rind was rather thin at that spot on the pumpkin and part of it came off too easy while carving) but hey: it's a spot-on Big Daddy! Not too bad eh? :-)