Boing Boing » skulls

Sugar skull and bones

Cory Doctorow — Mon, 27 May 2013 14:40:06 +0000

From November 2011, a set of photos documenting the creation of a sugar skull-and-bones set that can be served with macabre beverages, designed by Snow Violent and made by DR.HC.

Skull Sugar — from sketch to prototype. Part 1 (via Crazy Abalone)

It's a face! A skull! A mushroom! Psychedelic drawing lesson

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 14 May 2013 01:58:09 +0000

Katana Leigh sez, "I want to provide memorable ways to learn to draw that are interesting and visually entertaining. The proportions of a red spotted button mushroom are the same as a skull and these LSD colors provide maximum contrast so you can see the process and hopefully copy it. Not your boring art lessons but a new way to think about seeing."

How To Draw A Skull 2: when a mushroom is like a face (Thanks, Katana!)

SkullKerchief!

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 22:40:29 +0000

Here's Telma Costa's beautiful, knit skullkerchief -- perfect for staying warm, attending Misfits concerts, or everyday use.

The SkullKerchief (via Make)

Butterfly in a skull's eye-socket

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 17:44:05 +0000

Marko Popadic's photo "Oko" captures a spooky, sweet moment in which a butterfly alights in the eye-socket of a skull.

Oko (via Neatorama)

Kalashnikov made of bones

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 02:35:17 +0000

New Zealand artist Bruce Mahalski has put a new sculpture of an AK47 assembled from animal bones up for sale, with a starting bid of NZD3500. It's quite a beautiful piece of work.

The latest bone gun by New Zealand bone artist – Mahalski – is a life-size AK47 machine gun(330mm x 940mm) featuring found animal bones from rabbit, stoat, ferret, sheep, hawk, pheasant, wallaby, snapper, snake, blackbird, tarakihi, hedgehog, broad-billed prion , shear water, thrush, seal ,cat and possum (plus part of a skull from the extinct moa ). The gun is made entirely of bones mounted on an invisible wooden frame and is displayed standing upright on two rods on a piece of recycled matai timber (1130mm x 2000mm). You can see more pictures at - www.mahalski.org

KALASHNIKOV - AK47 (LIFE-SIZE REPLICA) Brand new item (Thanks, Bruce!)

Skull wedding cake

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 03:18:50 +0000

Baker Anna at Eat Your Heart Out Bakers made this astounding skull wedding-cake.

Food artist Annabel de Vetten, also known as Conjurer’s Kitchen, created this incredible skull wedding cake for the Eclectic Wedding Extravaganza in Birmingham this weekend. Her theme being ” ‘Til Death Do Us Part”.
It features solid chocolate skulls of 16 carrion crows, 12 domestic kittens, 3 Vervet monkeys, and 4 barn owls, all of which the artist sculpted by hand. Made from White Chocolate Mudcake, the cake took her over 100 hours to complete in total. There are two options of toppers: a chocolate conjoined kitten skull, or dried flowers from an actual wedding bouquet (ones shown here from her own).

The Ultimate Skull Wedding Cake (Thanks, Emma!)

Skele-Gore, now with fluorescent colors!

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 00:54:37 +0000

Scarecrowoven has revisited his "Skele Gore" image, and just in time for St Valentine's Day! Of the new version, Mr Scarecrowoven sez, "It's pretty insane. In person, the colors are so bright and fluorescent they actually work under a black light."

Skelegore "TRIP AT THE BRAIN EDITION" giclee print

Skull ice cube maker

Rob Beschizza — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 13:55:14 +0000

For $12, Gama Go will sell you a mould that makes skull-shaped ice cubes. Not technically cubes, though, are they?

P.S. This reminded me that we require pyramid-shaped ice cubes (i.e. pyramids) for our illuminati parties. Unfortunately, all the molds available online seem to be floppy silicone ones with the tops flattened to be stable in the freezer or oven. This is clearly unacceptable -- does anyone make a nice hard plastic one with pointy tops? If not, we may have to kickstart this.

Rhino horns aren't really horns

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Mon, 24 Dec 2012 15:50:53 +0000

Last week, I got to visit the Museum of Osteology in Oklahoma City. It's an amazing collection — well worth driving out of your way to see. I was expecting just a selection of different animal skeletons. The actual collection was a lot bigger and more awesome than I'd guessed it would be, and included some really nice exhibits on evolutionary adaptation, convergent evolution, deformed skeletons of both humans and animals, and the process of stripping a body down to a clean and shiny bone structure.

One of the things I found really fascinating was the skeletal features that you can't see just by looking at the outside of an animal. Take this Indian Rhinoceros, for instance. You'll notice that his horn is not a part of the skull. That's because the horn isn't really bone. The "horn" isn't a horn, at all.

Horns are made of bone. They're hard on the outside thanks to a thin layer of keratin — the stuff that makes up your fingernails and hair. But the majority of that material is living bone. Rhinos, on the other hand, have "horns" that are almost 100% keratin. They're really thick bundles of protein fibers.

That's a pretty well-known fact. But it's one thing to know it intellectually, and another thing entirely to see the place where that keratin horn attaches to the animal's actual bone structure. The intricate, lacy network of spongy bone was absolutely fascinating to me. It reminded me of the way ceramic artists will attach one piece of clay to another by scoring little cuts into both pieces and then applying a layer of thin, goopy clay that cements the cuts together as it dries. Seeing the rhino skull really drove home the idea that the "horn" was something else entirely. The horn was attached to the bone. It wasn't part of the bone.

Doktor A's immortality helmet

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 00:54:52 +0000

Doktor A's beautiful immortality helmet was produced on commission and looks like a spectacular way to extend your lifespan:

1. Remove strap and leads from the storage drawer.
2. Place electrodes against forehead and tighten strap.
3. Attach bulldog clips to terminals in the jaw.
4. Set over-ride timer to desired duration.
5. Crank the main handle to build electrical charge.
6. Close the main switch to engage the electrical flow.
7. Increase the electrical voltage using dial.
8. Wait until your Asphyx manifests within the tube.
9. Shut off charge to electrodes using the main switch.
10. Transfer the Asphyx to a long term containment device.
11. Congratulations you have gained immortality.

Congratulations you have gained immortality. (via Super Punch)

Skulls with houses on

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 14:26:15 +0000

These two house-topped silver skulls are 2011 pieces by Danish sculptor Frodo Mikkelsen, whose online galleries have many more fine examples of this sort of work, going all the way back to 2007. Each one is a perfect bit of grim whimsy, frozen moments of urban planning in a village of miniature grave-robbers.

sculptures 2011 (via Neatorama)

(Images: Bergen Kunstmuseum, Frodo Mikkelsen)

Rot: makeup stop-motion of a body in the dark

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 15:00:03 +0000

"Rot" is Erica Luke's stop-motion makeup animation showing a corpse's decay in a dark, enclosed space. It's beautifully, creepily well-done.

Rot (via IO9)

Skeletal rocker: rockin' bones

Cory Doctorow — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 19:20:01 +0000

I don't know what's more tragic: that I missed out on the chance to bid on this skeletal rocking chair, or that I didn't think to search for its like when we were shopping for a nursing chair after my daughter was born.

RUSSIAN STYLE CARVED WOOD SKELETON ROCKING CHAIR (via Neatorama)

Carved cedar mask with carved skull inside

David Pescovitz — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 18:14:28 +0000

Anthony Santell carved this magnificent "transformation mask." Santell was inspired by ritual transformation masks made by the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast and Alaska. Those masks are actually wearable and, according to Wikipedia, are operated by "pulling a string to reveal an inner, human face carved in wood. "Transformation Mask" opened and closed (via Neatorama)

Skull watch, 1780

Cory Doctorow — Sun, 28 Oct 2012 12:48:15 +0000

Hayden sez, "A good one for Halloween - this skull-shaped memento mori clock is historically important and even a little spooky today. The Art of Mourning site is all about death and love in jewelry and art, so there are many examples of the symbols of death throughout history."

Watches and clocks with the memento mori motifs were not uncommon, dating from the mid 17th Century to the 1930s. This early Verge silver skull pivots at the top of the cranium, whereas others pivot from the jaw. There are others created that fold open at the top of the head with enamel and diamonds, but pieces like these are extremely rare and command a high price. Examples exist from Switzerland, France, Germany and England. As written by the Taft Museum:
“The skull and watch are part of the standard subject matter of 17th-century vanitas still lifes. Vanitas is from the Latin for “emptiness” or “untruth,” from which comes the English word “vanity.” Such pictures depict objects that have an underlying moral message—usually about the fleeting nature of physical reality. Therefore, it is not surprising that the skull and watch, two reminders of the passage of time, should merge in a single object. The use of the skeleton hand, however, is unusual.1“

Thomas White Memento Mori Watch, c.1780

Skele-Gore skull

Cory Doctorow — Sun, 14 Oct 2012 03:47:30 +0000

Spotted today at New York Comic-Con, "THE 17,000 SINS OF SKELE-GORE" from Scarecrow Oven. Sadly, it is sold out. Let us hope for a restock.

THE 17,000 SINS OF SKELE-GORE

Tim Biskup art show in Milan

David Pescovitz — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 18:08:07 +0000

Longtime BB fave Tim Biskup has a show of new paintings opening this Thursday at Antonio Colombo Arte Contemporanea in Milan, Italy. Juxtapoz has a preview of the exhibition, titled "Excavation."

Anatomically correct, full-sized chocolate skulls

Cory Doctorow — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 21:10:50 +0000

Eat Your Heart Out has announced that they'll soon be taking reservations for these anatomically correct, full-sized chocolate skulls at £50 each. They're made by the cats at Two Little Cats bakery.

EXCITING NEWS! WE HAVE CHOCOLATE SKULLS…

Skull made from VHS cassettes: Dead Media

Cory Doctorow — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 19:59:18 +0000

Noah Scalin sez, "Dead Media is created from 497 VHS videocassettes that were given to me by several friends and also culled from my personal collection. The piece, which is approximately 20 feet long by 9 feet wide, was built in the style of the skull in Holbein's The Ambassadors and meant to be viewed from only one point and is actually quite distorted in real life. The piece is on display at the TCC Visual Arts Center in Portsmouth, Virginia from this Friday through November 1st after which it will be dismantled and used to create new artworks by the students of Tidewater Community College."

403. Dead Media (Thanks, Noah!)

Leather skull purse

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 17:29:57 +0000

Brian Griffin made this beautiful skull-shaped handbag, which sold on Etsy on July 1. It looks like he makes and lists them pretty regularly.

Hand formed leather skull clutch bag purse. The leather is formed and tempered to keep its shape. It also has fiberglass/resin enforcement where needed. Hand stitching finished off the borders where the 2 half’s meet. A magnetic clasp holds the skull together and it is lined with a dense felt...
I must point this out. This is first and foremost a work of art. It will hold small items but I do not advise packing it like a regular purse.

Leather Skull Purse Clutch in OxBlood

Skull hands

Rob Beschizza — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 03:44:44 +0000

A body-modified memento mori from Jason Traeger, who maintains, with Martin Sprouse, a blog collecting unexected instances of the Black Flag Logo.

Vacuum tube skulls

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 01:15:23 +0000

Noah Scalin's bonus skulls on his skull-a-day site, made from two- and three-inch vacuum tubes, are tremendous: "Most of the ones I own have this extra bump at the top so I decided to try leaving it unpainted giving you a peek inside and making them have a bit of an alien/robot feel."

[BONUS] 399/400. Skull Tubes Mach-2 I & II

Skull violin

Cory Doctorow — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 23:00:37 +0000

The Electric Violin Shop has got the answer to your electrified, death-gloom fiddle needs -- this fab carved skull instrument:

The death's-head shape of this natural wood Stratton electric violin definitely makes a statement. That statement is backed up by a rich, focused tone from the Barbera Twin Hybrid transducer system, providing a strong output signal that's great for acoustic styles, but also exceptionally well-suited for use with high-gain effects in high-volume performances.

Stratton Skull 5-string Electric Violin, Wood (via Kadrey)

Typewriter skull

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 18 May 2012 18:18:50 +0000

Jeremy Mayer, the titan of typewriter-part sculptures, has sacrificed some more old beasts for a good cause, producing this wonderful 9"x12"x15" skull.

Skull I (Thanks, Jeremy)

Ripped skull tee

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 15 May 2012 23:00:43 +0000

A nice t-shirt mod from the folks at Hurley -- the rip-skull. I don't expect it would survive a lot of washings, though.

DIY SKULL T-SHIRT (via Crazy Abalone)

Circuit-board skull

Cory Doctorow — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 20:06:23 +0000

"Circuit Skull" is a prizewinning piece by Graham Rudge from the Yukon School of Visual Arts, entered in a Bank of Montreal competition.

1res Œuvres! Concours invitation destiné aux étudiants en arts visuels, (via Street Anatomy)