Loco Skull by Charles Reckling

Skulls are something I am very drawn to when making an art piece. Skulls are a symbol for a lot of things: they can mean death, they can mean remembrance, they are the most important part of the body, they make up what we look like, they house the brain. Skulls can be cute, fun, and playful and they can be dark, frightening, and scary. Skulls have a lot of flexibility and have a lot of meaning so I always find myself making a piece with a focus on skulls. Beyond that I also think they look cool.

I created this in Adobe Photoshop. I went about making this piece by first drawing a zebra print background originally in a neon blue and pink (I was originally going for an 80's theme). After, I drew a skull in a bright yellow. I felt that it was missing something as it was rather bland so I copied the skull two additional times and distorted all three skulls. I wanted them distorted but still recognizable and that is what made it to the finished product. After, I proceeded to experiment with various edit options and just spit balled on what looked good. I sheared only the red panel just a little and added noise so it somewhat resembled an old VCR. On top of that, I also inverted the colors giving it this X-ray look. Finally, I selected a horizontal line, expanded it, and sheared it more aggressively to add the blur glitch effect that VCR's had that would creep up or down the film.