[part 1 - the turnip] [part 2 - the potato]
[part 3 - the beet] [part 4 - the gourd]

In the last entry of this series, I went back to the roots of Jack-o-lanterns and carved a turnip into a generic smiley. One of my main gripes with this root vegetable was the small size, and when I set out to turn a potato into a glo-lite, I wasn’t getting my hopes up. The potato had a pretty decent build for its kind, but a menacing pumpkin it wasn’t.

Again, a spoon seemed the logical weapon of choice. The turnip had been a tough customer, and the potato was tougher yet. Still, I was able to hollow it out without piercing its delicate potato skin, with only one gripe...

...I’d had quite enough of raw root vegetables for a good while.

Since my flatmates were watching Babylon 5 while I was shaping my tater, I decided to carve it in the image of Ambassador Mollari. I hadn’t really thought too far ahead and taken the sideways rooster comb he has into consideration, so I had to resort to cabbage to make it work. He ended up looking a little bit too much like Danny DeVito’s Penguin from Batman Returns, but then again Mollari is basically just the Penguin on a bad hair day. And vice versa.

In the end, my potato ambassador was an even greater success than the turnip smiley. It was a great deal more intimidating, at least for the neighborhood cats small enough to notice it, and the cabbage hairdo distributed the candlelight all over the driveway. Potato lanterns could very well be ripe for a comeback.

CLICK TO SEE THE NEXT ITEM:
A BEET!

-Pjalne