A Japanese artisan spent over 500 hours making a hyper-realistic wool felt model of a Miniature Pinscher.

Terumi Ota’s latest creation, a wool felt Miniature Pinscher, received over 32,000 likes on X (Twitter), and for good reason. At first glance, it looks like a real dog, which isn’t really the case with wool-felt sculptures, especially ones of short-hair breeds like the Pinscher. Apparently, due to the complexity of the project< Ota had to work on it intermittently over the last seven years, while she completed other commissioned works. She estimates that she put in over 500 hours of work, which sounds insane but is justified by the painstaking process of getting the dog’s short hair just right.

“Since the body lines are not hidden by hair, all areas, including the face, must be precisely sculpted,” Terumi Ota told Withnews. “Furthermore, the hair transplantation process is many times longer than for long-haired breeds. It takes tens of times more effort.”

To recreate the short hair of the Pinscher, several types of wool had to be combined and then painstakingly planted into the frame using a small needle. If there is a gap of just a few millimeters between the hair strands, it will not look right, so it is necessary to plant them without any gaps.

“We don’t just plant them densely, we also take time to condition the coat to give it a glossy, smooth look and feel,” Ota said.

Although this is one of the artist’s most impressive wool-felt sculptures to date, it is definitely not the only one. Terumi Ota is also known for creating a realistic white elephant sculpture measuring 180 cm tall, which, despite being made primarily of wool, featured the characteristic wrinkly skin and even the saggy bulge of its abdomen.

We first featured Terumi Ota in 2016, when her incredibly realistic wolf sculpture went viral online. For more of her amazing work, check out her official website, True Style Lab.