Skvllpel is an illustrator who draws couples in which one partner, and sometimes both, is a skeleton. The drawings are small black-ink scenes with a short handwritten title underneath: a kiss in winter scarves, a hug on a bed of roses, a skeleton cradling a heart. They look macabre at first glance, but most of them are about tenderness, desire and the fear of losing someone.
The artist posts the work on Instagram under the handle @skvllpel, a stylised spelling of “Skull Pel”, and several drawings here are also signed “Maze 2017”, which dates this group of pieces to around 2017. The clean linework, banners and stars borrow from traditional tattoo flash, and many of the titles play on song lyrics, proverbs and internet slang.
Below are 36 of the drawings with a short note on each. Some are openly adult in tone, with underwear, embraces and the occasional swear word, and they are shown here as the artworks they are.
Why skeletons and love work together
Pairing death with love is one of the oldest ideas in Western art. The Danse Macabre, first painted on a wall of the Cemetery of the Holy Innocents in Paris in 1424–25, showed Death leading people of every rank in a dance to the grave. Renaissance artists then developed the related theme of Death and the Maiden, in which a skeleton embraces a young woman. In Mexico, José Guadalupe Posada’s etched skeleton La Calavera Catrina, dated to around 1910–1913, used a skull in fine clothes to mock the upper classes.
Skvllpel’s drawings take that tradition in a gentler direction. Here the skeleton is not coming to take anyone away; it is the one being held. Without a face, a skeleton cannot smile or frown, so every feeling has to come from posture: the tilt of a head, the grip of a hand, the gap between two bodies.
The drawings
“My Softer Sin.” A skeleton in a turtleneck and a woman in a thick scarf lean in for a kiss, her hand resting on his jaw. The winter clothes and the closeness make it one of the warmest images in the set, even though one of the two faces is a skull.
“Phatty.” A long-haired skeleton in a hoodie and briefs printed with “Bad Grl” poses with a scythe in front of a coffin shape. It borrows the Grim Reaper’s props, the scythe and the coffin, and turns them into a cheeky pin-up joke.
“See No Evil.” A skeleton covers the eyes of a woman wearing cat-ear headphones while she covers her chest with her hands. The title nods to the three wise monkeys, and the pose turns that old proverb into a playful game between lovers.
“Covfefe Break.” A skeleton wraps both bony hands around a steaming mug. The caption borrows “covfefe”, the garbled word from a much-shared May 2017 tweet by Donald Trump, which places the drawing in that year’s internet culture.
“I Want You!” A skeleton points straight at the viewer and grins. The pose echoes the famous recruitment posters of the First World War, here recast as a flirtatious invitation; the drawing is signed “Maze 2017”.
“Welcome Home, Dreamboat.” Under a crescent moon, a skeleton in a fur-collared cloak cups the face of a woman in a frilled dress. The scene plays like the reunion at the end of a long journey.
“Fill the Void.” A skeleton pulls open its coat to show a swirling black hole where its ribcage should be. It is the most direct image of loneliness in the series: something is missing, and the title asks someone to fill it.
“Please Be Mine.” A skeleton hugs a long-haired woman from the front, its ribs and spine visible through a cut-away jacket. The embrace is tight and almost pleading, which matches the shy request of the caption.
“Did We Just Give Up?” A human hand and a skeleton hand reach toward each other, both tied with a red string that has snapped. The red thread is a Chinese legend of fate in which an invisible cord links two people destined for each other, so the broken thread reads as a relationship that has ended.
“Always.” A woman in a crop top and cat-ear headband stands in front of a hooded skeleton whose bony hand rests at her waist. Her calm smile and his protective stance suggest a couple who are completely at ease together.
“Losing My Sh*t!” A skeleton kneels and clutches its head with both hands. Not every drawing in the series is romantic; some, like this one, show anxiety and stress with the same blunt humour.
“Rescue You.” Under a starry sky, a skeleton wades through water carrying a woman in its arms. The pose recalls classic rescue scenes in film and painting, with the familiar roles of saviour and victim made strange by the skull.
“Stay With Me a Lil’ Longer.” A skeleton in a hoodie holds a woman close while she rests her head against him, eyes closed. It is a quiet, end-of-the-night moment: the title asks for time, the thing a skeleton is often used to represent running out.
“All Time Favorite.” Skeletal hands rest on a pair of shorts printed with the word “Dessert”, one thigh tattooed with a bow and the other with a spider web. It is a cheeky, adult joke about desire, drawn in the same clean ink style as the rest.
“I’ll Find My Way to You.” A skeleton in a wide conical hat and fur cloak holds a woman who leans into him with her eyes closed. The costume suggests a wandering warrior from samurai films, which fits the promise in the title.
“Pep Talk.” A skeleton in a hoodie and a woman in a choker stand nose to nose, about to kiss. The title jokes that encouragement can come in a less verbal form.
“Peculiar That We Are.” A skeleton in a dark cloak lies wrapped around a sleeping woman on a bed scattered with red roses, a scythe beside them. This is the clearest link to the old art theme of Death and the Maiden, but here Death is not a threat; it is the partner holding her.
“It’s All Over Now.” A shirtless figure with a skull for a head kneels with bones and sticks bursting from his body. It is one of the darkest images in the set, a picture of heartbreak shown as physical damage.
“We Lust F’rever.” A skeleton with a top-knot kisses the neck of a woman who leans back in pleasure, framed by a dark, starry background. The pun in the title, lust in place of last, sums up the mix of romance and desire in Skvllpel’s work.
“I Dreamt of You, Starboy.” A woman kisses the cheek of a skeleton in a leather jacket. The title borrows “Starboy”, the 2016 song and album by The Weeknd, another sign of the pop culture of the years in which these were drawn.
An untitled piece shows a skeletal hand holds a single rose against a dark, ink-splashed background. The flower is the classic symbol of love, and setting it in a bony hand is a compact memento mori: beauty held by something that reminds us of death.
“Blood Is Thicker.” Two skeletal hands form a heart shape, one finger dripping red. The title shortens the proverb “blood is thicker than water”, which is usually about family loyalty.
“Make Me Alive.” Two women in swimsuits sit together on a beach at night under a crescent moon, one of them drawn as a skeleton. It shows that the series is not only about one kind of couple; the theme is closeness itself.
“Rare Gem.” Bony hands lift up an anatomical heart that shines like a jewel, framed by ribbon banners in the style of traditional tattoo flash. The tattoo look is common in Skvllpel’s work and helps explain why these images were shared so widely as tattoo ideas.
“Too Old to Die Young.” A hooded skeleton crouches low on a skateboard. The title flips the old line about living fast and dying young into a joke about getting older while still acting young.
“Swear to Be Stronger.” A skeletal hand raises three fingers as if taking an oath, framed by ribbons and stars on a black background. Like the rose and the heart, it is drawn as a tattoo design about promises.
“Let Us Learn to Love Again.” A skeleton and a woman reading a book sit inside a crescent moon. The heart symbol in the title and the gentle setting give it the feel of a fairy-tale illustration about second chances.
“No One Can Fvck With Me.” A skeleton in a hoodie decorated with a rainbow holds a smoking shotgun across its shoulders. It is a tongue-in-cheek image of self-confidence rather than romance.
“Ghost of You.” A skeleton hugs a figure draped in a white sheet, the classic cartoon ghost. The joke is touching as well as funny: two symbols of death holding on to each other, and a title about someone who still haunts our thoughts.
“We’re Done Being Good.” A skeleton in a high-collared vampire cape stands behind a woman, who touches her lips with her eyes closed. The vampire costume adds a second gothic reference to a series already built around the skull.
“Wildly Flourished.” A woman and a skeleton face each other as flowers grow out of the skeleton’s ribcage. It suggests that love can make something bloom even in an unlikely place.
“Truly, Madly, Deeply.” A hooded skeleton is pierced by an arrow, a nod to Cupid. The title quotes a phrase made famous by the 1997 song by Savage Garden.
“Catch You When You Fall.” A skeleton catches a winged woman as she drops into his arms. It reads like a fallen angel being caught, a romantic promise in picture form.
“Take a Heavy Dose.” A skeletal hand cradles an anatomical heart that drips into a puddle. The caption treats love as a strong medicine, with all the side effects that implies.
In another untitled drawing, a woman embraces a skeleton whose eyes are hidden behind a rainbow-striped bird wing. The bright colour stands out sharply against the black and white of the rest of the drawing.
“Got Your Back.” A skeleton with long hair, seen from behind in a thong, sits in front of a red sun with smoke curling from a cigarette. The title is a visual pun, and the red disc recalls traditional Japanese imagery.
What the series says about love
Taken together, the drawings make a simple point. Love and mortality are tied together: we hold on to people partly because we know we cannot keep them for ever. By giving one partner a skull, Skvllpel makes that knowledge visible without becoming gloomy. The jokes, puns and tattoo-style banners keep the mood light, while the poses carry real feeling.
Expression without a face
The series also shows how much a drawing can say without facial expressions. A hand on a jaw, a forehead pressed to a shoulder or a body curled around another is enough. If you enjoy the style, the artist’s Instagram has many more pieces, and it is always worth following and crediting illustrators directly when you share their work.
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Sources: Illustrations by Skvllpel on Instagram; Wikipedia: Danse Macabre; Wikipedia: La Calavera Catrina; Wikipedia: Red thread of fate.
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