Do you want your pumpkins to look creepy or cute? Menacing or merry? Horrible or happy? We’ll help you decide how to decorate your pumpkins with our round-up of brilliant pumpkin faces!
Pumpkins are amazingly versatile... With just a little bit of carving or a lick of paint, they can quickly transform from an autumnal dream into something straight out of a nightmare!
Talking of nightmares, adding a scary face to your pumpkin is a surefire way to give neighbours and potential trick-or-treaters a fright!
We’ve found our favourite pumpkin face ideas with both scary and sweet options to choose from. This means you can make your pumpkin as terrifying or adorable as you wish!
Will you go for a fun black cat painted on your pumpkin or carve a creepy zombie complete with fake blood? Time to get creative!
Our top creepy and cute pumpkin faces to make
1. Creepy pumpkin face tutorial
We’re starting off in the creepiest way possible with this absolute terror of a pumpkin from Bobby Duke on YouTube. While this pumpkin masterpiece might look tricky, fear not, there’s a step-by-step video to follow that makes things much easier.
Bobby Duke cleverly uses satsumas for the eyes, to give them that round surface and hollow eye-socket appearance. While using clay to create the menacing grimace.
If you want to embrace horror this year, this pumpkin face is for you.
2. Spiderman face pumpkin
One for the web slingers out there! This fun pumpkin tutorial will have your spidey senses tingling.
Find out how to carve Spiderman’s face into your pumpkin and his webbed suit pattern. Once the tealight is inside the pumpkin, the light shines through, creating a magical effect.
3. Realistic pumpkin face
Did someone say uncanny valley? Yes, there’s a reason we find human-like faces unnerving! If you want to test your carving abilities give this realistic pumpkin face tutorial a try.
Although this pumpkin face looks complicated, as long as you take it slow, and carve just a little at a time, you’ll slowly start to see the face appear.
4. Cute cat face pumpkin
Looking for a super-cute design? Try this cat pumpkin face. It’s super simple and only requires a few carvings. Top tip: Be careful when carving the eyes though, as you’ll use them as the ears!
5. Carve your own pet’s face onto your pumpkin
What better subject than your own dog or cat's gorgeous fluffy face? For this pumpkin project, you’ll need a picture of your pet in a size that fits your pumpkin, and some tracing paper.
Draw the outline of your pet onto the surface of your pumpkin to give you a template to carve.
Once you’re finished, remember to get a photo of your pup or kitten next to their pumpkin doppelganger.
6. Harry Potter pumpkins
Transport yourself to the wizarding world with these fabulous pumpkin carving ideas. Although the two designs pictured aren’t faces, there are several available, including an owl and a sorting hat!
7. Wicked Witch pumpkin face
Transform your gourd into the Wicked Witch of the West with this pumpkin face idea! For this tutorial, you’ll paint your pumpkin with shiny green paint as a base and then add painted details such as crooked mouth and teeth.
To finish your pumpkin add a pointed hat (one with fake hair works well).
8. Mini pumpkin vampire faces
Make use of plastic vampire teeth to make your mini pumpkins extra scary! These funny vampire pumpkins are a quick and easy project to transform tiny pumpkins, using only a few cheap materials.
They'd look great dotted around your dining table when you're serving up a Halloween feast!
9. Cookie Monster pumpkin face
It’s the Cookie Monster! He isn’t the scariest monster, but he sure is cute! You won’t need a lot to create this project. Just some blue paint, white polystyrene balls for googly eyes and a black marker for the details. Oh, and a big plate of cookies, of course!
10. Family of mummy pumpkin faces
If you want to do pumpkin carving as a group activity, why not get each family member to create their own mummy pumpkin?
Top tip: Use a variety of sizes to represent each person – little pumpkins for the kids and big pumpkins for Mum and Dad.
11. Sugar skull pumpkin face
If you’d rather have a subtle design for your pumpkin, this sugar skull design is just the ticket!
The tutorial will give you all the top tips for carving your pumpkin, plus a free sugar skull stencil that you can download and print at home.
12. Mickey Mouse pumpkin face
Carve everyone’s favourite animated mouse! Mickey is here in pumpkin form, courtesy of Studio DIY.
You can use either fake or real pumpkins for this tutorial, depending on how long you want your creation to last.
You’ll have one big pumpkin which you can carve Mickey’s face into using the free template, then two smaller pumpkins to make his famous round ears.
13. Eyeball pumpkin carving
Focusing on one part of the face is a great way to make your pumpkins eerie. In this case, it’s the eyeballs!
This tutorial by Woman’s Day cleverly uses a small white pumpkin placed inside a hollowed-out orange pumpkin to create a sunken eyeball look!
With big green eyes staring out from your garden, they will definitely give trick-or-treaters a scare!
Pumpkin painting!
Don’t fancy the mess of carving? Gather up your art supplies to make these fabulous pumpkin painting ideas.
14. Zombie pumpkin with slime and brain
Make your pumpkin look like the undead rising with an exposed brain and slime-filled mouth! This tutorial from Dave Hax will show you how to turn your pumpkins totally terrifying.
In this guide, you’ll learn how to remove the top of the pumpkin’s skin to carve a brain pattern into the flesh. When you return the lid, it will look like the brain is poking out through the skull. Spooky!
15. Goofy smiling pumpkin
Looking for the goofiest gourd on the street? This one's for you! With a great big silly smile made of twigs, this one will make your neighbours giggle.
This pumpkin face also incorporates sweets – very appropriate. His eyes are made from liquorice allsorts, and he’s got a lollipop in his mouth.
16. Pac-Man pumpkin faces X-ray
Carve Pac-Man as you’ve never seen him before! In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to carve and scrape your pumpkin to reveal a Pac-Man X-ray silhouette!
It’s certainly a unique carving and once illuminated it’ll catch the eye of passers-by.
17. Angler fish pumpkin face
We all know what lurks at the bottom of the ocean is unnerving, so these creatures make the ideal inspiration for your creepy pumpkin carving.
Follow along with this fun tutorial and find out exactly how to carve an angler fish complete with long sharp teeth!
18. Classic pumpkin face tutorial
If you want to keep it traditional, head over to our how to carve a pumpkin guide. We’ll show you how to carve a fun yet spine-chilling design! There’s a helpful video to follow along too.
19. Pumpkin eating a pumpkin
Watch out! The bigger pumpkins are eating the little pumpkins. Well, they are in this fabulously spooky pumpkin face carving.
20. Glow-in-the-dark pumpkin face
Carving a pumpkin face is one thing, but you can really take your pumpkins to the next level with glow-in-the-dark paint.
Drip, splodge and flick paint onto your pumpkins to create a variety of cool effects, then wait for the sky to darken and watch your pumpkin faces light up.
21. Heart eyes pumpkin face
If you want to make your pumpkin more sweet than scary then this pumpkin face tutorial is for you!
The simple video tutorial will show you how to carve this cute design, plus plenty of carving tips and techniques.
Are your pumpkin faces scary or sweet?
When deciding how to decorate your pumpkin, you need to ask yourself: do I want horror or cutesy? Once you know this, you can choose the most gruesome or sweetest pumpkin face design.
Outdoor Halloween decorations to make your garden complete!
It’s not just pumpkins that work well for Halloween. We’ve rounded up our favourite outdoor Halloween decorations to transform your garden! Get all the Halloween inspiration you need with Gathered.
