WIP epic pumpkin contest entry by Yukino Hatake

Off to a great start! There are a couple of things I'd like to point out though. The first is there could be a bit more variety in the shapes, as they're all seemingly elongated whereas some pumpkins can be a bit more squashed and level, like this:

Now I imagine you're going to add more details like wrinkles and pores later on so I'm not going to critique that, but you could put some more obvious wrinkles on the stalks, like you have with the main body. Other than that though I feel you're off to a great start, good luck!

thecabbagedetective hey thanks for the feedback. I gonna try to redo the little one and one on the right. And add with all of them details on the top of their head. Seems it is called stalks 

yyukinoh1989 Hey, she's going full throttle!  For your pumpkins, the tops round off and flatten instead of tapering to the top.  They're reading more like guards or butternut squash with that shape than pumpkins.  Maybe visit a local pumpkin grower and take pictures of the different pumpkins, if you can.

silentheart00
indeed i noticed they are somehow diffrent . for the long on on the left should one like that be ok ? then i redo the other 3 and make them more rounder at the top instead of that :) .
i sure did had a really busy week . havent stand still :o

silentheart00  and thecabbagedetective
if i have this shape and make one taller (like the one above but still in this shape and then one that is smaller just in regular size should this be better ? ) i already added more details this time but still have to retoplology i guess (trough i wonder how i could keep the small details )
this is the result (also did some practicing with lightning :D )

btw i didnt add any texture's yet everything of the collors are done with lightning (just noticed i didnt smooth the background xD

now this one is lesser good lightning but i guess now i know what @theluthier meant with backlightning can be tricky
somehow i want to create the rim light on all 4 pumpkins but i cannot succeed at it (at this point the one in the middle gets too much of the light reflected back at him . i wish i somehow could cancel that light bouncing :s
but this should be the forms for my pumpkin family before the little one goes to hogwarts school of magic :D
so they decided to take one last family picture . (that is the idea still need to add faces etc :p)

yyukinoh1989 There you go!  They definitely remind me of pumpkins now.  For retaining details, you can either bake out some maps or use a multiresolution modifier, kick up the subdivs, and shrinkwrap that around your sculpt.

silentheart00 hey well i wonder what should be best now . first should i make a expression and with the boolean create the holes . afterwards use a solidify to create some thickness again and then retopology and do the bake or what order should i best go to get the result ? also is baking and multiresolution the same ? as well can i depend how strong the effect will get again after i did the retopology ?.
its my first time i will go beyond sculpting so i wonder what order i should take things and how the other functions will work .
i never used the multireslolution or bake or shrinkwrapped before . so i could use some help with how to handel things.
again thanx for all help so far and the amazing tips :D

yyukinoh1989 No, baking maps is not the same thing as the multires modifier.

About baking maps

How multires can save detail

Think about it.  What does a boolean do to your geometry?

silentheart00
a boolean makes the shape dissapear depending on the setup. but i wonder if i should first do the face expressions or first should start retopology and the rest . (i really am struggling with eighter do that at the start or at the end )

yyukinoh1989 What else does a boolean do?

silentheart00 not sure . the only way yet i learned to use it was to erase parts of it like if you have a cube and you take a ball there will be a round hole in it (depends on how you place it ) . so i really dont know what else they can xD

yyukinoh1989 Okay, what does it do to your topology?

silentheart00
it updates the geometry ?(edit topology )

yyukinoh1989 In a way, I guess.  It makes really bad geometry, geometry you'll probably have to retopo anyway.  So with that in mind, what do you think you should do?

silentheart00 first carve in the face expressions then and afterwards use the solidify to give it thickness ?

yyukinoh1989 Sure, give that a try.  See what happens.

silentheart00 Kay :D i sure will . thanks for the help. this time i cannot afford to make too much mistakes . if i need to redo it too much i wont make it sadly .

yyukinoh1989 No prob.  It helps to think about the process and trying to optimize it so you won't have a bunch of redundancies.  You'll get there.