How about bringing a tattoo or body art feeling to your Halloween pumpkin carving? Simple, bold graphics often make both good tattoo designs and easy-to-carve pumpkin patterns. You might try carving a design based on one of your own tattoos, adapt a piece of your favorite flash to make a pumpkin stencil or use a ready-made pumpkin pattern.

Most of the patterns listed below are free, but a few might be for-sale only. If you have Photoshop or some other graphics program that will let you scan a photo and then turn into into a greyscale image, you can even learn to make your own pumpkin pattern stencils. Designs which say "pdf" next to the name are links that lead right to the pattern, all others lead to a page where you will download the design yourself.

Skull and wings - this banner style design is a lot like what you see done for armbands.

Mom Tattoo (pdf) - A tattoo classic can now be a pumpkin carving classic.

Pin-up girl portrait (pdf) - This "damsel in distress" design actually makes for a good "pin-up girl" pumpkin tattoo.

Maori Facial Tattoos - chose from four different traditional looking face mokos for your pumpkin!

Asian Dragon - This dragon design looks just like many popular dragon tattoos.

Medieval dragon (pdf) - This dragon is more European, fantasy-style.

Misfits logo - When the Misfits first formed, they only played on Halloween and their fans often got their logo done as a tattoo, so it seem fitting to use the design for a pumpkin.

Mudflap witch - the trucker classic with a Halloween twist

Celtic knot - These designs are just as tricky to cut into a pumpkin as they are to tattoo, so be sure to apply the design carefully and cut slowly.

Spider web - It should be easier to get this carved on a pumpkin than it is to have one tattooed on your elbow.

If you aren't really a pumpkin carving type, you can also get a white pumpkin, called a "ghost" pumpkin, and then draw your chosen design on it with markers or paints for a full-color, tattooed pumpkin!