Halloween pumpkin art: Carving the zombie apocalypse
Ray Villafane and his crew of sculptors turn pumpkins into undead art that gets more ghastly with age.
The only thing better than a zombie pumpkin is a 6-foot-tall rotting zombie pumpkin.
In a marvelous tribute to the coming zombie apocalypse, Phoenix-based master pumpkin carver Ray Villafane and his team have chopped up super-squashes at the New York Botanical Garden.
The Haunted Pumpkin Garden exhibit opened earlier this month but its main attraction, the zombie harvester, is now rotting beautifully.
The tableau was carved from the three largest pumpkins in the U.S., including an 1,872-pound monster.
The zombie is depicted in excruciating detail, including its guts and rotting flesh, dragging a vine of monstrous pumpkin people out of the ground. It took three days to complete the scene.
Villafane Studios includes sculptors Andy Bergholtz, Trevor Grove, Chris Vierra, Alfred Parades, and Patrick Burke. They've been featured on TV shows like "Halloween Wars" on the Food Network.
Villafane's style is a blend of fantasy, cartoonish imagery, and pop art, and pushes the limits of 3D pumpkin sculpting.
If you haven't chiseled out your own jack-o-lantern for Halloween yet, check out some of Villafane Studios' amazing creations in the gallery above for inspiration -- and don't miss the stunning submissions to our Crave geeky pumpkin-carving contest. Happy carving!
