Fully Operational Fandom: Pumpkins from a Galaxy Far, Far Away

Star Wars inspires people in a variety of ways, and I never tire of seeing fans channel their adoration for the saga. Everyone personalizes the films and applies it to life differently. Christy says Star Wars is what spurred her to start pumpkin carving "voraciously." She has an impressive portfolio of Star Wars pumpkins featuring scenes and characters, but says the Death Star-centric design pictured above is her favorite.

Her carving work also includes incredibly-detailed portraits of characters. She does a wonderful job of capturing likenesses whether they're of humans or droids; these Han Solo and R2-D2 carvings are just two examples:

And since she's a member of the Alpine Garrison of the 501st Legion, she carved the logo for the organization onto a pumpkin:

When you're choosing a design for your pumpkin, you can't go wrong with a stormtrooper helmet. It's classic and simple. Ben Singer made this one:

And of course, fans aren't forgetting about The Force Awakens. BB-8's spherical shape makes the astromech droid an ideal choice for pumpkins. He's a popular selection this year. You could easily translate his design to different scales -- I think a desktop BB-8 made from gourds would be especially cute. These carvings are a bit bigger though. Sean McMillan put his BB-8 onto the side of a pumpkin:

Both Tony Kim and CaptCash used two pumpkins to make BB-8-shaped decorations. They painted their pumpkins white before carving BB-8's pattern into the surface, and their techniques varied from there. Kim drew BB-8's markings onto the pumpkin and used a small pumpkin cutter and saw (you can get those tools in the Halloween section at any store right now) to remove chunks for the circles. He lined the inside of the pumpkin with orange tissue paper so that when you look through the carved spots, you don't just see pumpkin guts.

CaptCash started by cutting the holes on BB-8's head for his optical attachments and then used a pinned string and pencil to draw the circles on BB-8's body. He then used a clay-shaping tool to carve out layers on the circles without punching all the way through the exterior of the pumpkin. By leaving a thin wall of pumpkin, the candle's light will still shine through and glow.

Are you working on any Star Wars-themed pumpkins for Halloween this year? Tell us about them in the comments below. Need more inspiration? Don't forget to look at more fan-carved Star Wars pumpkins from Halloweens past.

Amy Ratcliffe is a writer obsessed with Star Wars, Disney, and coffee. Follow her on Twitter at @amy_geek and keep up with all things geeky at her blog