The wall for the back of the pumpkin should only be scraped thin if you are going to cast a shadow. In this case, scrape it down to half an inch thick. Read projection patterns are much smaller, and it helps if there is less pumpkin wall to cut into. Front Patterns Patterns for pumpkins are about as large as the face of the pumpkin. Anywhere that will be light on the final product should be cut away, in short, you're cutting out the negative.
Patterns make high use of negative space .
Obviously you can't have pieces floating, so everything has to connect to the wall of the pumpkin. Rear Projection Patterns Pumpkins can project images out the back and onto a flat surface. This effect looks really nice for indoor displays. Rear projection patterns need to be smaller than normal patterns and are typically no larger than four inches square. The pattern should be towards the top of the pumpkin's back, not centered like the frontal pattern.