Every last one of us shared the same creeping fear of what might be skulking beneath our bed when we were children. Or, failing that, perhaps you were one of those kids who heard something scratching at the window behind closed curtains at night and felt your blood turn to ice water in your veins. We were all kids once, and we each had a unique and highly memorable fear that has stayed with us into adulthood.

But there was nothing under our beds, was there? And that scratching at the window? Probably a tree branch moving in the wind. We know that now and we probably knew on some level that back when we were silly children with galloping imaginations.

But fear serves a purpose: self preservation. We did not evolve this emotion without good reason. So this Skritter (my largest so far) is inspired by and dedicated to our childhood fears.

It is also inspired by the microscopic possibility that there was one night - just one - in your childhood when it was a very good thing that you didn't look under your bed or open the window curtains to see what was making that scratching noise.

Sweet dreams.

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'Night Terrors' uses a real coyote skull as the base. The skull is a naturally deceased salvage from Redlands, CA. The creature was hand-sculpted using Sculpy and an air-drying lightweight modeling compound called Pluffy. His detailed black and gray scales were carved using a needle and toothpick. One of his ears is tattered and bloody; as you can see the flesh has been torn from the muzzle to expose blood smeared bone and muscle. Most of the teeth are the skull's natural coyote teeth; however that did not give me the look I wanted so I added some grey fox teeth and opossum teeth to make my creation look just right. The teeth were recolored to have a lovely 'filthy' look and finished with a high gloss glaze for that much-needed wet appearance; droplets of 'drool' cling to the teeth and dribble from the lower jaw here and there. Night Terrors has a slick and glossy black-red warty pointed tongue, and more teeth are visible through the raw hole gouged through one cheek.


Oh, and about those horribly empty, soulless eye sockets: They glow a hellish yellow-orange in the dark! The same goes for the inner mouth further back. The glow effect is triggered by exposure to light before putting the Skritter in darkness. The brighter and longer the light you expose it to, the brighter the glow will be!

A fantastic collector's item for any horror fan...or an impressive Halloween centerpiece for your table, perhaps. The use of a real skull makes this 'skullpture' very unique and one of a kind.

All carving, painting and detailing was done by hand and the same goes for the processing and taxidermy work on the skull. The skull was cleaned by my own dermestid beetle colony and prepared using environment safe methods.

Night Terrors is 8 inches in length, 4 inches in height and weighs in at just under a pound. The Skritter will be sold with an elevated pine display stand hand-painted with the pieces' title in the buyer's choice of font color; the stand is being made now and will be painted black.

Total time needed to create this piece: 7 weeks. (Including the time needed to process the skull.)

Additional photos at the link below.
http://raintulgey.tumblr.com/post/1.....m-silver-skull

Available for purchase below.
https://www.etsy.com/listing/239284....._home_active_1
www.etsy.com/listing/239284594…