Oh my gourd

Did you know that the centuries-old practice of carving pumpkins into spooky faces on Halloween is actually not the original tradition? Long before pumpkins, people used to carve faces into turnips – a much more readily available veg in old-timey Ireland and Scotland, where the tradition is first recorded. It wasn't until people picked up the habit in America, where pumpkins were plentiful during the harvest time, that the Jack-O'-Lantern we all know and fear love was born.

And thank heavens for that, because pumpkins are much easier to build in Minecraft. Turnips are small, and boring-coloured! Pumpkins are big, orange, and tasty! Can you imagine a turnip pie, or a turnip-spice latte? No thank you. 

Luckily for us, this builder is a much bigger fan of pumpkins than he is of turnips. You may remember Uknownymous, also known as "Robert" to his friends and parents, from his incredible Dirt Mansion build on this very website. Now that he's built himself a lovely house to dwell in, Robert has moved on to spookier things: 'A Scarecrow's Meadow', in which a Jack-O'-Lantern-headed scarecrow looms menacingly over a field of pumpkins.

Built as part of a "Scary Pumpkin Carvings" competition, Robert's possessed scarecrow is based on his own childhood memories. "My mind jumped to the idea of pumpkins in a field," he says, "reminding me of some nostalgic memories about some pumpkin monstrosities I saw once when I was younger in Scooby-Doo." He put his own spin on the monsters, adding glowing evil eyes, a swirl of malicious magic, and a creepy backstory.

"I made the pumpkins the results of experiments on the farmland," Robert says, "causing unexpected results." In his tale, the local spirits of the area were tormented and tortured by the agricultural experiments, causing them to "haunt the night" by possessing the mutated crops. "It's a little dark," says Robert, "but, really, the night's darker anyway."

You may notice from the pictures that Robert's possessed scarecrow does indeed look best in the dark, which is a huge challenge in Minecraft. Most things just don't look quite as good at night (unless you've got a computer beefy enough to handle the RTX version)! But Robert considers night-time a challenge, not a limitation. "I think the dark is what I prefer building in," he says. "I really love adding lighting into builds, and night is when it shines most – literally!"

Look closely at the pumpkins' faces and you'll see that they're lit up from the inside with redstone lamps behind stained glass, casting a spooky orange and purple glow on the land. Not a bad idea if you're looking to spice up your own builds!

Despite the incredible level of detail in the build, it only took Robert six hours to complete, with the help of WorldEdit for assembly and some of the floating elements – although he built most of it the old-fashioned way. "I prefer hand-building as much as I can, as it feels like I have the most control over the detail that way," he says. "I mostly use WorldEdit's copy and paste function to speed up the process!" 

Many of the builders we talk to like to meticulously plan out their builds, especially when there's a team involved. But Robert likes to keep things loose when he's building. "I have enough free reign that I like to embrace it," he says. "there's no way I know exactly what I want from the start." This gives him the freedom to change things, add things, and completely start over if he gets a better idea. "Inevitably this leads to me looking back on some builds and thinking of things I'd want to change them," he says, "but it's also fun to see a build unfold as a surprise as it expands."