Paul Alexander Thornton

Ever wondered how all this awesome skull art comes into being?  How can a person create something so appealing with just a pen or paintbrush?  This might answer some of your questions.  Today we are trying something different, rather than a picture we have a video for you!  This video is one from Paul Alexander Thornton- an artist and designer from the UK with a penchant for drawing skulls!

Besides just being mesmerising, we have found another use for his videos.  Seeing as Paul draws us anatomically correct skulls… we can use the video to identify all the skull landmarks we have been talking about.  Having trouble picturing a concha?  Getting your sutures confused with your foramen… this is for you!

Times are approximate… the stop motion is too fast for me to be perfect!

• 10 s- nasal concha and then nasal spine
• 11-12 sish- nasal bone
• 23 s- infraorbital foramen
• 26 s- maxilla bone
• 34 s- zygomatic bone
• 48 s- zygomaticofacial foramen
• 52 s- frontal bone
• 1.02 s- temporal bone and supraorbital foramen
• 1.07 s- some cool red jewels where the metopic suture would be
• 1.32 s- foramen magnum
• 1.42 s- mandible/jaw
• 1.59 s- mental foramen
• 2.17 s- from here on we get some vertebrae and the rest of the pic

You can find a veritable bevy of similar videos on Pauls youtube page here and, even cooler for our fellow Craniophiles a whole section dedicated to skulls here.  And if you want to see the final product minus the video…. or you have slow internet…. or you dont have flash player…. or for whatever reason, you can see more finished work on his website here.  Enjoy!