Friday, July 18, 2008

Collection Skull - Winner #3

Congratulations to Mike Griffey from New Hampshire who is the third Collection Skull winner with this one made from 61 Jone's Soda bottles...


P.S. I've already got my seven winning submissions, but I'm offering a few runner up prizes as well, so if you've got something awesome in the works, why not send it in anyway!

Hopeless Old Men on Skateboards Skull

My friend Mark Conahan (who did all of the hard work making my Skullphabets into fonts!) shared an appropriate episode of his comic Hopeless Old Men on Skateboards....


Read more and buy his book HERE.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Collection Skull - Winner #2

Congratulations to Mike who is the second Collection Skull winner with this 5 x 4 ft (1.5m x 1.2m) piece made out of 58 regular decks of cards, 1 mini deck and 8 cards from jumbo decks...

Bottlecap Skulls

Borkmadjai in France made this lovely fellow...




And Wendy Edsall-Kerwin in Elizabethtwon, PA made this sweet one from caps from beer her and her husband drank "over the past 6 months or so"...

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Collection Skull - Winner #1

Congratulations to Balint Markus from Hungary who is the first Collection Skull winner with this appropriate material...

[BONUS] Sidekick Skull

Frequent commenter Arbyn, created a fun custom Sidekick screen using my Sketchy Skull and Skullphabet font!

Bacteria Skull

Niall Hamilton is a part-time microbiologist in New Zeland, who creates "art on agar"! In this case he made this fantastic skull with a "run-of-the-mill ubiquitous environmental species" of bacteria on sheep blood agar (shown after 2 days incubation)...



You can see more of his work HERE.

He says he's working on a fungal skull as well, which I'll gladly post when I get it!

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

[CONTEST] Collection Skulls

OK it's time for another contest! Thanks for all of your great ideas, this one was suggested by Doomination...

Make a skull out of your collection.
What do you have a lot of? Shoes? Autographs? Star Trek Collectibles? Skulls? Arrange them in a skull shape and take a picture and send it in! (The ususal submission rules apply).

The first 7 submissions (that I like!) will win one of the limited edition Ornament(al) Skull prints. I'll post the winners one a day as they come in so you'll know how much time is left to submit.

Now get to it!

UPDATE: Take your time and make something good! Winners will be selected at my discretion based on collection materials and quality of photography.


UPDATE 2: I've got all of my winners! Thanks everyone for your submissions! Stay tuned for more contests in the coming months...

LP Skull

Corrine aka Jafabrit created this excellent painting in acrylic on an old vinyl record!

Monday, July 14, 2008

[UPDATE] Gear (Head) Skull Redux

Before dismantling #341 Gear (Head) Skull, my friend Dave spraypainted over the entire thing and left a semi-permanent version on the floor of his workshop at Scoot Richmond! Here's the picture he took of the resulting image...

Camera Skull

Wayne Martin Belger, whose work was featured in a Braincase previously, shared this simply fantastic camera "Yama" he made out of a real 500 year old Tibetan skull...





And here's a bonus photo he made with one of his cameras...

Sunday, July 13, 2008

[UPDATE] Skull of Cabbage: Day 47

A rather drastic change in the Skull of Cabbage after more big storms and hot weather! It got totally overwhelmed by the fungus/mold that appeared on it last week. It had a rich deep green color for a little bit while it was wet, but now it's basically black and feels like it is dry all the way through. At this point it has shrunk to only about 2.5 x 2.5 x 3in [ 6 x 6 x 8cm]. Are there still more surprises in store or has it reached the end of its lifespan?


If you're wondering what this is all about, you can follow the Cabbage's progression HERE.

Skull-A-Day Press: Blog Of The Day Awards


















Skull-A-Day featured 0n the Blog Of The Day Awards website on Sunday, July 13, 2008. Check out the award here!

http://blogofthedayawards.blogspot.com/

Sunday Simulacra - Round 2

Neil Brock of Vancouver B.C., Canada found this scary looking rock formation on Saturna Island in the Gulf Islands of British Columbia...



My friend Carol found this spooky fellow in the yard of a house she rented in Santa Fe, New Mexico...



And Ale Psycho from Milan, Italy discovered this sneaky "teschio" upon waking up...

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Skullustrations

Splicegraph mailed this image off on a postcard, he says it's "about a crazy dream of chewing on electrical cables and frying my head off, this nightmare disturbed me for days"...


And Spaceman in Montebello, California made this lovely piece. He says, "I don't know junk about drawing so I thought this was prooty cool"...

Friday, July 11, 2008

Before and After Food Skulls

Peggy Fussell created this excellent "Skull-quille St. Jacques"...




And Xumb Nayan from Bangi, Malaysia made this fantastically disgusting fellow from a co-worker's lunch leftovers...

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Digital Skulls

Fun digital illustrations by James Knowlton of St. Petersburg, Florida...



and Jimmy Eason from "Houston area" Texas who says, "I found a sun-bleached fox skull while on a hike in a forest; decided to take it home and create some art with it. The skull was enhanced to represent the element fluorine, a nasty gas."

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

[BONUS] Skull Stencil In Use

Several people have sent in fun examples of my original Stencil Skull in use...

Wade Campbell used it on his DJ set up!

Dave made a painting with it (and sold it for $18)!

Kerry Viney of London, Ontario, Canada marked her trash can with it and her son made some nifty blow pen art with it!


And Justin AKA Tatman did some woodworking with it! He says, "I used my propane torch to scorch the finish and add the burn marks. I cut the stencil out of a sheet of aluminum so that it wouldn't burn."

Stuffed Skulls

Valerie Schwindling in France, makes these fantastic soft skulls out of recycled clothing and sells them at music festivals around Europe...


Here's a bonus portrait of Valerie taken by her friend Philippe Comtesse...


Folks interested in Valerie's work can get in touch with her through Philippe.

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Monday, July 7, 2008

Skull Series

Benjamin Girard of Paris shared this fantastic series of acrylic paintings which he started this year...

"It's Now or Never"


"Vieille Canaille"


"Global Warming"

Sunday, July 6, 2008

[UPDATE] Skull of Cabbage: Day 40

A few more thunderstorms and continued hot and humid weather have caused the Skull of Cabbage grow some black fungus/mold on it. Is this the end for the poor fellow?...

Sunday Simulacra

Joseph Biondi AKA B13 discovered this skull hiding on a horse!...



Jason Gaver in Spokane, WA found this fellow hiding under his friend Dustin's mug at the Viking Tavern...

My friend Tim had a beer close encounter...

Saturday, July 5, 2008

Skull Paintings

JonathanAXIOMchrist from Portland, Oregon made this intense piece with acrylic on acetate...


and Evelyn in Mesa, Arizona made this serious fellow with acrylic on a 5 inch x 5 inch canvas...

Friday, July 4, 2008

[BONUS] Black and White Cross-Stitch

Scott in Nashville, Tennessee did a fantastic job making my Cross-Stitch Skull! He not only did a normal version, but also used white thread for a spooky inverted version as well...

Soapy Skull

A story from Grace: "Well, I encountered a skull in my shower today. I don't know if anyone else has ever had to resort to such ghetto-ness, but when one bar of soap is about to run out, I will take the little sliver of old soap and stick it onto a new bar. (Seems a waste to throw away the little bits, no?) Anyhow, the result of having the old soap meld with the new one was a skull-like blob on a pink, raspberry-scented backdrop! I scraped out an eye with my nails, and immediately thought to myself, 'I must send this to Skull-a-Day'"

Thursday, July 3, 2008

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

[BONUS UPDATE] The Fate of #96 Squashed Skull

On September 7th, 2007 my skull for the day was a carved acorn squash: 96. Squash(ed) Skull


A few days later I posted a picture of it as it had aged:



Here's what happened after that:
As the squash continued to age it was getting softer and starting to grow mold so I decided to put it in the oven on the lowest setting and help it dry out. Everything went well for a few days of this, until someone who was unaware of the drying process decided to preheat the oven for some baking and burnt the little fellow to a crisp. Happily it was discovered before it was entirely destroyed, but the result was a little more toasty than originally planned...


It's now about 2 x 2 x 1.5in (5 x 5 x 4cm).

Keychain Skull

Rennie in Naples, Italy made this fun ceramic piece, which is a part of her accessories series...

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Skull-A-Day 2.0: Update 2

Thanks for the great feedback on my questions about image management! I've taken everyone's suggestions under consideration and here's my new plan (for now):

1. I'll be more selective about what I post. I have a hard time with this, since I'm really interested in encouraging creativity and not being judgmental, but I'm trying to see it from the point of view of folks visiting the site as well. Though I will definitely give preference to things made specifically for the site over pre-existing work.

2. I'll group 2-3 items by theme in some posts from time to time when it makes sense to do so.

3. I'll put less emphasis on simulacra. Right now my plan is to group 3-4 at a time and post them on Sundays.

4. I'm only going to accept tattoo images from the tattoo artist, and since there are really a lot of places where tattoos can be posted, I'm going to be extremely selective here.

I liked the idea of a fan forum, where folks can view/vote on all the images, but I don't have the time/energy/expertise to set this up. If anyone wants to set up a fan run fan gallery I will gladly support it.

I also like the idea of eventually having other moderators here (ala Boing Boing), but I think that has to wait for Skull-A-Day 3.0!

Skull-A-Day 2.0 is a work in progress so please keep giving me your feedback and I'll keep tweaking things. Thanks again for sticking around and playing along!

Barber's Skull

Tony Yates of Corvus Communications made this cool logo for a "rebel hair stylist/barber" though sadly it wasn't used...