Well.. I haven't written any journal for about 6 months now haha, but I thought I'd tell you guys about my special knives I'm using to carve. But despite all this special tools for fruitcarving just remember that it's not the tools that makes you good, it just make it easier for you to work. So if you're a newbie and just want to try out carving fruit I'd suggest that you start with a basic knife.

Now, when you carve a fruit (especially a watermelon with this hardass shell) you need a really sharp knife. I realize after working with not that sharp knifes it makes it heavier to work. You have to push twice as hard as you need to and your fingers hurts afterwards, so a sharp knife is a very much must. The size of the knife is also very important, it should not be too big. The smaller the blade is the easier it is to carve the details, big knives would just ruin your beautiful small details. The knife should be spikey, for example if you just want to try it out you could buy IKEA's fruit knife which is the small crooked one. It's good that it's crooked, then it's easier for you as a beginner to put more force in to it when you push down the knife as you carve. If you can't find one just use any regular small and thin knife.

here's the picture of IKEA's knife:

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I wish I had a picture for this, but when you hold a knife you hold it like when you hold a spoon, a pen or chopsticks. It's kind of tricky in the beginning but after a while you get used to it. The reason why you do that is that if you hold it like you normally hold a knife you give it too much force and basically cuts too much. While holding like a pen you can regulate slowly the force you need to carve a certain line or pattern. Because when you slip, basically the fruit would be ruined. Try and carve lines on a mango and you'll see what I mean. I prefer mango since it's not too squishie or too hard for a beginner.

Now if you have been carving fruits now and then and wants to take it to another level I do suggest that you buy a fruit carving tools. If you google "fruit carving tools" you'll find some quite good online shops. They sell it in dollars and it's quite expensive but if you're serious with fruitcarving then it's worth it. There are both crooked and non crooked pro-knifes. The crooked one is used for harder fruits and the straight ones are for softer sorts. But mostly it depends on what you as an artist like the most, similar to when painters choose their favourite pencils.

Here is a picture of professional knifes:

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The left one as you can see is straight like a spear while the wooden one on the right is a little bit crooked. Both the blades are really thin and sharp, just like a surgery knife. A good professional knife basically never unsharpens if you treat it right.

I hope you enjoy reading it. I will put up a mini beginners tutorial as soon as I get my knife (mom is in Thailand and I ordered her to buy me new knifes since I lost the old one). And sorry for my english if it seems a little bit too odd for you. Ask me questions and I'll answer them asap