I feel Will Blood’s x-ray art in my bones

Here’s a guy I’ve been following online for years, and I feel like I really need to make it a goal to acquire some of his work this year.

UK artist Will Blood has carved out a unique space for himself, blending the playful nostalgia with the macabre. I can’t get enough of it.

His signature style takes familiar pop culture icons — characters I’ve grown up with and hold dear — and peels back their iconic exteriors to reveal detailed, equally unrealistic yet believable anatomical structures.

The result? A captivating collision of nostalgia and morbidity. He calls them “anatomical sketches of an animated crowd”. Nailed it.

Blood’s use of bold, vibrant colours with smooth gradient backgrounds contrasts with the eerie skeletal forms, creating a visual tension both unsettling and captivating.

The loyal and immediately recognisable black linework of the characters’ outside appearance, laid over a more detailed skeleton cleverly drawn in a more muted colour, is such a killer technique. (I’ve often wanted to copy it!)

I’d love to have some of his work, but it’s usually damn expensive (rightly so), and I’ve never been fast enough to snatch one of his more affordable limited-run items. Some day I’ll get lucky…