Vessel: Film funding project. Here are some beautiful illustrations of skulls made ​​by talented artist James Hoper.

”To help raise funds for my new film project as part of Mononym films I have produced limited edition screen prints, artwork and postcards. All proceeds from sales will go towards funding the short film Vessel.”

About the artist:

”My work explores a variety of subjects from the heightened realities depicted in Baroque art and modern media to the restraint and release of energy found within complex structures such as the human body. I work in various mediums including painting, drawing, sculpture and film.

I have exhibited widely throughout the world including both group and solo shows in London, New York, Los Angeles, Milan and Barcelona.

Born in Knutsford, England, 1982. I graduated in 2005 with a BA (Hons) in Fine Art from Manchester Metropolitan University.” James Hoper / For more details go to: mononym.co.uk/vessel

We Love Skulls! Digital illustration by Nolan, Long Island, EUA.

Tarik Mikou is a graphic designer, photographer, and artist based out of Montreal. Check the website for more awesome stuff.

Dolk Lundgren, or simply Dolk (Norwegian for dagger/knife), is a Norwegian stencil artist whose work has rapidly gained popularity since first being introduced to the masses via Wooster Collective (street works) and Pictures on Walls (POW) (commercially available prints).

His “official” biography, courtesy of POW, stated, “The premier stencil artist in Norway and wise beyond his years, Dolk has been voted ‘most likely to succeed’ by his classmates at vandal school.” POW went on to say, “Direct from Bergen, Norway we present Dolk Lundgren. An exciting new artist who lists amongst his hobbies ‘sex, sex, and vandalism’.” Dolk’s profile from Stencil Revolution lists his occupation as “fluffer” and states his interests as “stencils, painting, exploring, sex.”

This beautiful work is available for sale at fineart.no

”My first try of drawing a skeleton it was harder than i thought”. The Dead Bride, illustration by Ziad, art student and illustrator based in Saudi Arabia. This skull would be really perfect on a t-shirt.

Skull Shark by Mr.Four Fingers.

This skull illustration is a combination of Staedtler Pigment Liner 0.3 and V7 & V5 Pilot Hi-Tecpoint pens, indian ink for larger areas. The turquoise  was originally yellow, done with Aqua Brush marker, changed with Photoshop tinkering.

See below, more illustrations of skulls:

About the Designer Studio:

”We are a young South African duo inspired by the grit and grime of the London streets. An inspiration that has led us down a path of art, skulls and dark undertones. We are obsessed with what lies beneath, the tainted side – the unseen but only ever imagined.  We are a collaboration of two restless and exploratory minds and Mr Four Fingers is our representative. Together we share art in the hope to infiltrate every home in the world.”  mrfourfingers.com

We love skulls! Kathy Murysina is a Russian artist living in St. Petersburg. After studying at the School of Visual Communication, Animation and Multimedia from Bordeaux, she now works as a designer / illustrator for magazines or Russian brands. His works both wild and sensual show a ubiquity of the female figure even in its darkest corners. Click here to see more work of this talented artist.

After getting a BFA in the mid 1990′s, he moved to Minneapolis where he has been building a body of unique and thought provoking work while exhibiting at museums, galleries and universities throughout the United States. His work is also found in private collections all over the globe. He has found a really strong and creative community in Minneapolis with a supportive audience and ambitious, talented artists. Building upon this community, he has also been the gallery director of the Minneapolis Arts Collective, Rosalux Gallery, for the past ten years, helping other artists further their own careers.

Artist Statement

Terrence Payne’s archetypal oil pastel portraits combine narrative elements, refined organic forms, along with delicate and bold lines to suggest movement and evolution in his subject’s character.  The earnest beauty ensuing from the clumsy actions of his subjects as they stumble through life in pursuit of their ideal existence inspire him.  Whether or not they ever reach their prescribed potential is irrelevant to Terrence, it is the fleeting and universal experiences that happen along the way, which truly define their humanity.

Click here to see all the works of this talented artist.

Celebrated fetish artist Brian M. Viveros is internationally embraced for his erotic paintings of doe-eyed beauties with Marlboros dangling seductively from their lips and has also recently been utilizing the medium of film to capture the dark and evocative debris that radiates from his mind. His paintings are a drunken mix of oil, airbrush, acrylic, and ink. In his work Viveros shines a light on his own inner world and society at large and aims to captivate even the most jaded eyes.

Viveros’ recognition accelerated with his participation in ‘The Art of Porn’ exhibition held in Switzerland (1997), where he exhibited alongside H.R. Giger. Since then Viveros’ work has been exhibited extensively in North America and Europe in numerous gallery shows and at Aqua Art Miami (2009) and GenArt’s Vanguard Fair (2008). His work has also been featured in numerous books including Les Barany’s ‘Carnivora: The Dark Art Of Automobiles’, Harry Saylor and Carolyn Frisch’s ‘Edgy Cute: From Neo-Pop to Low Brow and Back Again’, Matt Jordan’s ‘Weirdo Noir’, and Erotic Signature’s ‘The World’s Greatest Erotic Art of Today – Vol. 1 and Vol. II’.?

His work has also been featured in the pages of Juxtapoz (no. 118), Secret Magazine, In the Flesh, Skin Two, Drawing Blood, Darks Art, Joia Magazine, Tattoo Extreme, XFUNS Magazine, Let’s Motive, Truce, Digital Temple, Riviera Magazine, Uce Magazine, Ego Magazine, Real Detroit Weekly, .ISM Quarterly, Tattoo Society, Dark Art’s Parlour Magazine, Revolution Art, Iniciativa Colectiva, Fetish Magazine, and was also recently featured on the TV show ‘LA Ink’ (where artist Nikko Hurtado tattooed one of Viveros’ paintings onto a client).?

Viveros made his directing debut in 2005 with his quietly eerie, boldly stylized short film Dislandia, a psycho-drama revolving around a young girl who exists in a desolate world full of dreamlike images that range from bizarre to symbolic and erotic. Southern, his latest surreal film, returns cinema to the unclean. Southern is an experience of primordial sights, sounds, and sentiment, blanketed by a fog of troubling eroticism and violence. Viveros was also recently featured on the Sundance Channel’s ‘Pleasure for Sale’ where they featured a behind the scenes look at the artist and the dislandic crew that helped him to create his film Southern. brianmviveros.com

Born in Barcelona in 1973, Berto Martínez is known for his photo-realistic style. His aquarelle illustrations are showing a wide range of interests, from portraits, lifestyle, art, cinema, and fashion to social issues or interior design. Martínez is currently based in his city’s Eixample district, his favorite as he can live and work surrounded by impressive modernist buildings.

As a child, he loved illustration because it is a powerful way of communicating as well as one of the most honest resources for the artistic expression. Today, it’s a vocational affair. Martínez has not only learnt his skills from the lessons at the Llotja (arts and crafts school), where he specialized in mural painting and illustration, but he also has a strong sense of auto didacticism in many ways so as to reach his goals -his most important one being searching for the image’s function in order to apply it on different media, formats and supports.

Martínez works to find the cohesion between text and illustration through realistic figuration and psychological portrait: to create images that tell a story.

More works in Berto Martínez  and unit.nl/portfolio

Face Book. Titled ”We are different”, here is a series of illustrations on photographs illustrated by Ewa Mos – UK based.

”In illustrations and photography I like catching strange things. Love skulls,hearts and skulls!That’s right. My all illustrations are hand-drawing and colorized in digital way. I’m the most happy when I can join photo with illustration.” Ewa Mos

Strolling through a paradise of inspirations, also known as Behance. We found these illustrations of skulls signed by Barish, tattoo artist, Illustrator and graphic design from Queretaro, Mexico