ASCII Art Skull

Tap a skull to copy every line: 35 pieces, with 5 signs and labels you type over once pasted.

ASCII Art Skull

\\ .---. // \\ / 0 0 \ // \\\ ^ /// //'|||||'\\ // \\ //___________\\ | KEEP OUT | '-------------'Skull and crossbones sign8 lines, 15 wideReady to copy

35 pieces. Tap one to copy it.

One line 4

Small, 2 to 4 lines 9

Medium, 5 to 9 lines 17

Large, 10 lines and up 5

Next step The skull and crossbones as a single characterGoth symbols, one character each

How it works

Thirty-five pieces of skull ascii art, all drawn for this page: plain skulls, the skull and crossbones at four sizes, a pirate with an eye patch, a sugar skull, a steer skull, one in headphones. The shortest is one line, the tallest 14. Tapping a card copies every line of it.

Read the full guide

Find the right skull

The sections go by height: 4 one-liners, 9 small, 17 medium, 5 large. 25 of the 35 carry the Fits a comment box badge: 8 lines and 30 columns at most, this site's rule of thumb and no app's promise. Search reads words the names leave out: pirate finds five pieces, only one of them named Pirate.

Make it say something else

Five pieces hold words to type over after pasting. The sign under the top skull takes 11 characters in place of KEEP OUT, the speech bubble 11, the warning triangle 10, the poison bottle 7, and the one-line label as many as you like. Pad a shorter word with spaces so the right-hand wall stays put. Search editable for all five.

Tips
  • For a username, the ascii art skull to take is Skull and bones, one line: 8--(0_0)--8, 11 characters, each 8 the knob of a bone.
  • Filled skull silhouette is made of one character. Swap every # for another with find and replace and the 14 lines keep their shape.
  • Halloween pieces that are not skulls are on the Halloween text art page, which leaves the skulls to this one.

Questions and answers

Why did my skull arrive bent?

Two usual causes. A box that folds runs of spaces into one drags the jaw out from under the dome: Squash-proof keeps the 9 pieces with no such run. A box that reads Markdown prints each \\ as a single \, so the four crossbones pieces with doubled backslashes get one bone half as thick. The cat page has the fixes for both.

Is there a skull I can paste as one character?

Two, and no piece here uses either: ☠, Skull and crossbones (U+2620), and 💀, Skull (U+1F480). Both carry Unicode's Emoji property, so the device decides how each is drawn, black and white on one, a colour picture on the next. All 35 pieces stick to the 95 printable ASCII characters. The single ones are on the bone emoji page.

What does the skull and crossbones stand for?

Mostly a hazard symbol now, usually for poison, and tied to piracy because some Jolly Roger flags carried it. On a black flag it became the most commonly used pirate flag during the 1720s. Here the poison side is Poison bottle with a skull and the pirate side is Jolly Roger skull flag, with a pirate translator for the message underneath.

More tools

Browse Text styles

All 35 pieces

One line 4

  • Skull and bones, one line One skull with a bone end showing at each side. The 8 is the knob of the bone. 1 line, 11 wide. Keyboard characters only.
  • Skull that lost its jaw The skull is on the left. The jaw is some way off to the right and not coming back. 1 line, 21 wide. Keyboard characters only.
  • Skull warning label A one-line label with a skull at each end. Type over DANGER with whatever is in the bottle. 1 line, 26 wide. Keyboard characters only.
  • Three skulls on a shelf Three skulls in a row on a shelf of underscores. Copy (0_0)_ again for a longer shelf. 1 line, 19 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Show all 35 pieces (31 more)

Small, 2 to 4 lines 9

  • Catacomb wall of skulls Four skulls to a row, two rows deep, and no spaces anywhere. Paste it again underneath for a taller wall. 4 lines, 20 wide. Keyboard characters only.
  • Skull and bones, no spaces The same crossed bones with dots for padding. No line starts with a space and no two spaces touch. 4 lines, 9 wide. Keyboard characters only.
  • Skull with a speech bubble A small skull with something to say. Type over I HAD PLANS, 11 characters at most. 4 lines, 24 wide. Keyboard characters only.
  • Small skull and crossbones The poison label in four lines: bones crossed behind, skull in front. 4 lines, 13 wide. Keyboard characters only.
  • Small skull with a nose Four lines, which is the fewest that leave room for the hole where the nose was. 4 lines, 7 wide. Keyboard characters only.
  • Small skull, three lines A dome, two crossed-out sockets and a row of teeth. The smallest one here with a top to its head. 3 lines, 7 wide. Keyboard characters only.
  • Squash-proof small skull Dots where the spaces would be, so a box that eats spaces has nothing to eat. 4 lines, 7 wide. Keyboard characters only.
  • Tiny skull, two lines Eyes on the first line, teeth on the second, and not one space to lose. 2 lines, 5 wide. Keyboard characters only.
  • Winged skull A skull between two spread wings, every feather a slash. 4 lines, 25 wide. Keyboard characters only.

Medium, 5 to 9 lines 17

  • Hooded skull A skull deep inside a hood, shoulders of the robe at the bottom. 8 lines, 17 wide. Keyboard characters only.
  • Jolly Roger skull flag A skull and crossed bones on a flag with a ragged edge, flying from a mast. Delete the last two lines for a shorter mast. 9 lines, 20 wide. Keyboard characters only.
  • Laughing skull Jaw dropped open, a row of teeth above the gap and another below. Copy the empty line between them for a bigger laugh. 9 lines, 13 wide. Keyboard characters only.
  • Pirate skull, eye patch A bandana knotted on the right and a patch over one socket. The other socket is doing the looking. 8 lines, 15 wide. Keyboard characters only.
  • Plain skull, front view Dome, sockets, nose hole, cheekbones and one row of teeth, with nothing else going on. 8 lines, 13 wide. Keyboard characters only.
  • Poison bottle with a skull A corked bottle with a skull on the label. Type over POISON, 7 characters at most. 9 lines, 11 wide. Keyboard characters only.
  • Skull and crossbones sign A skull over two crossed bones, standing on a sign. Type over KEEP OUT with your own words, 11 characters at most. 8 lines, 15 wide. Keyboard characters only.
  • Skull in a top hat A tall hat with a band, brim down over the brow. Delete the second line for a shorter hat. 8 lines, 13 wide. Keyboard characters only.
  • Skull in sunglasses Dark glasses over both sockets. It has no ears to hook them on, and wears them anyway. 7 lines, 13 wide. Keyboard characters only.
  • Skull warning triangle A hazard triangle with a skull inside. Type over DANGER, 10 characters at most. 8 lines, 16 wide. Keyboard characters only.
  • Skull wearing a crown A three-point crown sitting square on the head, where the top of the dome would be. 8 lines, 12 wide. Keyboard characters only.
  • Skull with a candle on top A lit candle stuck to the top of the skull with its own wax. The top line is the flame. 9 lines, 11 wide. Keyboard characters only.
  • Skull with a rose A rose held in the teeth, flower to the left, stem out the other side. 8 lines, 18 wide. Keyboard characters only.
  • Skull with headphones Over-ear headphones, band across the dome, a cup at each side. 8 lines, 15 wide. Keyboard characters only.
  • Small skull with a bow A skull with a ribbon bow on top and a v for a nose. As friendly as a skull gets. 5 lines, 9 wide. Keyboard characters only.
  • Squash-proof skull, medium Five lines with walls down both sides, so no line starts with a space. The sockets are two lines tall. 5 lines, 9 wide. Keyboard characters only.
  • Steer skull with horns A cattle skull, long face, horns out to both sides. The one skull here that was never a person. 9 lines, 27 wide. Keyboard characters only.

Large, 10 lines and up 5

  • Big skull, all outline Square sockets, a nose hole and six teeth, all outline and nothing filled in. 14 lines, 21 wide. Keyboard characters only.
  • Filled skull silhouette A skull filled in with # signs, sockets and nose left blank. Swap every # for another character to change the bone. 14 lines, 15 wide. Keyboard characters only.
  • Large skull and crossbones Two bones with knobbed ends crossed behind a skull. Every bone is drawn with both of its edges. 12 lines, 25 wide. Keyboard characters only.
  • Skull in profile Side view facing left: one socket, the notch of the nose, two rows of teeth and the long curve of the back of the head. 11 lines, 22 wide. Keyboard characters only.
  • Sugar skull A decorated skull in the style of the Day of the Dead: flowers for eyes, a flower on the brow, stitched teeth. 13 lines, 19 wide. Keyboard characters only.

How this list was compiled: Every piece was drawn for this page and checked in a monospaced font on 2026-09-19; none is copied from an archive or another site. The set covers plain skulls from two lines to 14, the skull and crossbones at four sizes, five pieces with words to type over, skulls in hats, glasses and a hood, a steer skull, a sugar skull, a side view, four one-liners, and five taller pieces drawn without a single run of spaces. Each character was looked up in the Unicode Character Database, version 18.0.0: names and categories in https://www.unicode.org/Public/18.0.0/ucd/UnicodeData.txt, width classes in https://www.unicode.org/Public/18.0.0/ucd/EastAsianWidth.txt, the Emoji property in https://www.unicode.org/Public/18.0.0/ucd/emoji/emoji-data.txt, all read on 2026-09-19. Keyboard characters only means the 95 printable ASCII characters, U+0020 to U+007E. Squash-proof means no line starts with a space and no two spaces touch. The comment box badge means at most 8 lines and 30 columns: a rule of thumb of this site, not a promise about any app. The skull and crossbones as a hazard symbol for poison and as a pirate flag: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skull_and_crossbones and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jolly_Roger. Decorated sugar skulls and the Day of the Dead: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calavera. All three read on 2026-09-19. Licence: own work