Custom Handmade Día de los Muertos Skull by Anatomical Element

Skull-A-Day friend Rachel B. Stork Stoltz, MS is a supremely talented medical illustrator and the creative mind behind Anatomical Element.  She was a featured artist at the Face Off Exhibition for Skull Appreciation Day 2013 in Chicago, plus she has sponsored one of our wonderful giveaway contests.

This masterpiece of metalsmithing is truly blowing my mind with everything that is included in it.  I'll let her tell you more: "Made from copper, brass, and sterling silver. All pieces are hand sawn and either soldered or riveted together. Real human teeth are set for the eyes and flower. Stainless steel jaw plates are used as the hanging mechanism. Designs representing a neuron and fibromuscular dysplasia adorn the skull. This piece measures about 2 inches by 3 inches and can be adjusted to hang high or low. All teeth and jaw plates came from the customer. This is a very personal piece and is bound to start countless conversations!"

Rachel says that she's starting to really like this style, and I couldn't agree more.  The use of real pieces of anatomy is just fantastic.  Thanks for sharing this truly awesome piece with us, Rachel!

Science Skeleton

Peter Istenik from Slovakia, created this artwork from Black granite. I love the anatomical design of this skull and hand. The shading made by using a hand engraver, is delicate and works well with the multi-tonal shiny granite. This particular granite reminds me of outer space, for which the science theme seems appropriate. To see a time lapse video of this piece being engraved, head to the bottom of this post.

Here is the time lapse video of this engraving being created.

[CONTEST] Win a Metal Skull with Brain Pendant from Anatomical Element

THIS CONTEST IS CLOSED! Thanks for participating!

Rachel Stork Stoltz, of Anatomical Element, is a medical illustrator and obsessed with anatomy. She started metalworking as a way to rip herself away from the computer and get her hands dirty. Her very first piece was an anatomical heart and the anatomical skull with brain soon followed (and is one of her favorites!). Rachel made a skull pendant from old roofing copper that she found in her grandfather's barn. She is giving away this skull pendant to one lucky Skull-A-Day fan!

 Close up, so you can see the details.

A perspective view to show the layers of metal

Hanging on a neck, to give you a better idea of size

PRIZE INFO: One anatomical skull with brain pendant from Anatomical Element. The pendant is about 1 3/4 inches wide and 2 1/4 inches tall. It's hand cut and hammered, layered with steel rivets. Bottom layer is copper, skull layer is aluminum, and the brain is copper with a fire scale patina.

HOW TO ENTER: A fancy skull like this deserves to be worn somewhere special. To enter this contest, comment below telling me what special place you would wear this pendant to, if you won it. For example, I'd likely wear it to the International Museum of Surgical Sciences in Chicago, IL, on May 31st, for our Skull Appreciation Day show opening.

CONTACT INFO: The winner, chosen at random, will be contacted via email by one of the Skull-A-Day editors within 7 days of the end of the contest. If that winner doesn't respond, another winner will be chosen. With your comment, please INCLUDE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS!!! Entries are only valid with this information.

WHERE TO ENTER: All entries must be made on this blog post, on Skull-A-Day.com. You CANNOT enter this contest by commenting on Facebook, Twitter, or Google+.

CONTEST CLOSES: 11:59:59 PM Eastern USA Time Friday, May 17, 2013.

NUMBER OF WINNERS: One

PRIZE SHIPS: This contest is open to all skull lovers around the world.

IF YOU DON'T WIN: Don't fret, her jewelry is available in her Etsy shop, Anatomical Element. Rachel is offering a 10% discount on your entire purchase, if you enter the promo code skulladay13 at checkout. The discount is good from Monday, May 13, 2013 until Saturday, May 25, 2013. You can find out what Rachel is making on her Facebook page.

Anatomical Skull Drawing

Manar from Lebanon, "drew this a while back for my sister's art project".

I always admire the anatomical skull artwork that comes into our submissions box. This one is particularly eye catching, because it's very well done. Manar is a very nice sister to do this for her sister. I hope the rest of the art project was as amazing as this is!

Skull Makeup Trio

Crystal Overland of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, is a makeup artist. She created these skull makeup looks.

We get a variety of skull makeup submissions from various talented artists, but rarely from an artist that specializes in makeup. I like seeing the different skulls that Crystal created. The soft shading of the two anatomical skulls add to their eeriness. The last one is modeled after a Dia de los Muertos sugar skull. It still has some soft shading, but the opaque paints help define the influence. You can see more of Crystal's work on her website and Facebook page.

Anatomical Skull Makeup

Daisy Linden created this skull makeup. She explained,  "This year was a departure for me as I ditched my usual make-something-huge-and-unwieldy-from-scratch method for drawing on my face for a few weeks leading up to my favorite holiday. I'm pretty pleased with how it finally came out, which is good, because I've been doodling skulls on every page of notes I've taken for the last who knows how long."

One of my favorite art forms to get submissions for is skull makeup. This is a great anatomical version. I love the shading, which makes the features pop out better. Daisy tried something that wasn't her normal Halloween prep guidelines, which is a great thing for any artist to do.

[BONUS] 404. Pumpkin Anatomy II: If I Only Had A Brain

A few years ago I discovered that with careful dissection you could discover the secret anatomy of a Jack-O-Lantern. This year I decided to try another experiment and low-and-behold it turns out that if you cut it just right you can reveal the hidden brain of a pumpkin!...

I thought it would be fun to give you a step-by-step guide if you wanted to give this a try yourself...

1. Get two pumpkins, one orange that's larger and one white that's smaller. You'll have to guess how much smaller the 2nd one needs to be, but figure the walls of the larger will probably be 1-2 inches thick. The bonus is you can always carve away more if you need to adjust the fit.

2. Mark off a line about 1/3 of the way down on the larger pumpkin to allow for a large enough opening to insert the 2nd pumpkin. Then draw your design on each pumpkin. The orange one can be a fairly traditional Jack-O-Lantern, I just made mine a skull since it's my thing. For the brain I printed off reference images from the internet so that I could it make it look more realistic. It only needs to cover the 1st 1/3 of pumpkin, since the rest will be hidden. NOTE: use a marking tool that can easily wiped off (china marker works well). I made the mistake of using a metallic sharpie that only came off with the use of nail polish remover!

3. Carve & gut the 1st pumpkin like you normally would. Be sure to keep the top since it makes a nice display element later.

4. For the brain pumpkin carve the lines first, by incising them with V-shaped cuts that only go about 1/4 of an inch deep.

5. Cut off the bottom of the brain pumpkin and gut it from below. Then cut out a shape that will allow the design of your larger pumpkin to be uncovered and allow candle light to come through! You will end up with a sort of helmet shape. Sadly it didn't fit on anyone's head when I made it, but it would be an amazing kid's costume if you've got a willing volunteer! The trickiest part is adjusting this to fit inside the 2nd, so you may have to carve away at both the inside of the orange pumpkin and the outside of the white to get it to sit properly.

Good luck! And of course if you make your own please send us pictures to share!

Skull Portrait

Jennie Klingenberg, from Oslo Norway drew this skull in May, 2012.

Using anatomical skulls for artwork references is always neat to see. Each interpretation is different, as both the skull and how a person views an object varies from person to person. With the attention to details and shading of a natural human skull, this reminds me of a portrait. With portraits, you want to include those subtle details, so you can properly capture the look of the subject. I think this pencil drawing does a great job of doing just that.


“Countdown To Halloween”
13 more days and counting...

Dia de la Abby #61: Anatomical Skull Makeup

Last Sunday, we went to a zombie themed wedding. Yep, zombie themed! Since costumes were encouraged, I decided to do skull makeup.

Photo by: Carlton Kotalo

Full costume

I've done a basic skull and sugar skull makeup before (both with tutorials). I wanted to do something more anatomical, so this is what I chose. I wrote a tutorial for how to do this same makeup, which is great for Halloween. I painted the ribcage on an existing black satin corset. I made two blood splatter flowers. One for me and one for the bride. I painted a spinal column on my throat and chest, so it would coordinate with the ribcage corset.


Every other Thursday in the 5.0 year, I will post my own Dia de la Abby creations   Every Thursday in the 4.0 year, I posted my Dia de la Abby creations and occasionally tutorials with instructions on how I made my pieces. Hopefully you feel inspired by my posts just as I was by Noah's Skull-A-Day 1.0 daily project. Need more of me than just a weekly dose, follow me on  Facebook, Google+ and/or Twitter.

Bright and Dark Skulls

Anita Foard submitted these piece of skull artwork.

By the look of the shading and opaqueness, I think these are done with water colors. I like the use of vivid colors and grays to create these skull paintings. It speaks of the light and dark in all of us. They are all beautiful, in their own way. My favorite is definitely the 1st one. This is due to the use of anatomical skulls to sugar skulls. That level of detail in the sugar skulls, is hard to achieve with water colors. You can see similar details in the last one. I love the intensity mixed with the softness.

Skull Appreciation Day Daily Button Giveaway

To be entered in today's drawing to win a button just leave a comment below stating: How do you make your skull bright or dark?

IMPORTANT: Don't forget to include your EMAIL ADDRESS, so we can contact you if you win.

NOTE: If you're reading this on Facebook, be sure to leave your comment on the original Skull-A-Day.com post if you want to be actually entered in the contest