Be honest, looking at this hyper-realistic drawing of a squid, could you ever tell it apart from a real-life cephalopod? Most people couldn’t which is why Japanese illustrator Yuuki Tokuda’s artwork has been getting so much attention on social media.

Yuuki Tokuda is a talented illustrator whose cartoony characters have been immortalized in books and magazines. But the Japanese artist has recently been enjoying praise for his hyper-realistic drawings as well, particularly that of a mind-blowingly realistic squid done with a pen, pencil, airbrush and a copic marker. Looking at his masterpiece and the level of detail he has been able to achieve with such a limited arsenal of tools, it’s easy to see why Tokuda’s pictures have been liked and shared by hundreds of thousands of people on Twitter alone.

Read More »

A young art teacher from China’s Shanxi Province was recently praised online for spending three months working on a detailed chalk rendition of a traditional masterpiece.

When Zhao Wenrui, an art teacher in Fanzhi County, decided to draw a chalk version of Along the River during the Qingming Festival he just wanted to do something interesting for his students, to surprise them when they cam e back from the coronavirus quarantine. He certainly didn’t set out to use eight chalkboards side by side, five buckets of chalk and work on it for no less than three months, but then he found himself unable to ignore any of the details depicted in the treasured panoramic artwork.

Read More »

If you’re looking to have some goofy fun while quarantined in your own home, how about investing in a high quality portrait of your pet as a pompous royal?

Enter Crown & Paw, a company dedicated to helping pet owners honor their bundles of joy by creating hilarious digital portraits of them as generals, princes, or ladies, whatever title the client desires. The company curates a collection of authentic 19th century portraits and rare Renaissance era oil paintings, and combine them with pet portraits to hilarious effect. Seriously, just look at the examples below.

Read More »

Akie Nakata describes herself as a “stone artist”, but there is more to her craft than simply painting river stones into familiar animal shapes. Every one of her pieces goes through a complex process that begins with choosing the right stone and continues with bringing out the life in it.

The Japanese artist, who goes by Akie on social media, has a very special way of looking at looking at stones. While most of us choose to ignore them, she considers them similar to living organisms, in that there is a rich history behind them and they all have a story to tell. She is just someone enabling that story to come out with her paintbrush. She believes that every stone she chooses in turn chooses her, giving her the ok to paint what she sees on it. Akie feels that her art is a collaborative effort of hers and the stones’, and she always shows her respect by never altering or processing a stone to better suit her design.

Read More »

We originally featured the amazing ballpoint pen drawings of Portuguese artist Samuel Silva back in 2021, but he has been buys over the last eight years, and I though we’d take a look at what he’s been up to.

Looking at some of Silva’s incredibly realistic artworks, it’s clear why many consider him the no. 1 ballpoint pen artist in the world. The photo-like level of detail in his masterpieces is simply uncanny, making it hard to believe that he is a self-taught artist who never went to art school. He started drawing when he was 2-years-old, and developed his own style and technique by creating “simple classroom sketches in the back of exercise books”. A lawyer by by training, Samuel Silva doesn’t create new works as often as other artists, but when he does, you better believe it’s something special.

Read More »

London-based Ben Koracevic is a young, self-taught string artist determined to push the boundaries of the art form. Looking at the insanely detailed portraits he is able to create using only black string and expertly placed nails, I’d say he has already succeeded.

Using thousands of nails carefully positioned on a blank white canvas, and pieces of string with a collective length of over one kilometer, Ben Koracevic spends dozens of hours painstakingly recreating iconic portraits of celebrities, movie characters and even animals. The level of detail in his works is simply uncanny considering the materials he works with.

Read More »

If you’ve ever dreamed of wielding your favorite sword or mage staff from the video game that most impacted your childhood, there’s a company that can make that dream a reality, sort of…

Let’s face it, taking a life size replica of Cloud’s Buster Sword from Final Fantasy VII to work with you isn’t very practical, unless you’re a professional cosplayer, but there’s still a way to carry it with you everywhere. Hero’s Armory is an online company that specializes in everyday items and accessories shaped like mythical and fantastic weapons, from intricate blades to sorcerer wands. Ever dreamed of unlocking your front door with a tiny replica of Frostmourne, the legendary sword of the Lich King from World of Warcraft, done! Need a tie clip shaped like Thor’s Hammer? they have that too.

Read More »

When it comes to fondant modelling, there are few food artists in the world who can even hold a candle to Zhou Yi, China’s famous “Sugar King”. His amazing sculptures are so incredibly detailed that even though they’re edible, they definitely qualify as ‘too good to eat’.

The first time we featured Sugar King on Oddity Central was in early 2018, just after he blew everyone’s minds at the International Cake Competition, where he and his team managed to win three gold medals and one bronze, with an incredible cake featuring an awe-inspiring fondant sculpture of Empress Wu Zetian, the only female ruler in China’s history, as a young woman. It was so detailed that judges could literally count her eyelashes. He was the first Chinese artist to get a gold medal, and even though he was already very popular on Chinese social media, his fame grew even more after being featured in national and international news outlets.

Read More »

Samia Al Homsi Dagher, a software engineer and illustrator from Lebanon, has made a name for herself by creating stunningly realistic ballpoint pen portraits. From celebrities to commission portraits of everyday people, this talented artist’s artworks are sometimes hard to tell apart from photographs.

Born in 1987, the Tripoli-based artist started drawing when she was only five years old, and as you can see from the images below, she has gotten a lot better since. She is now considered one of the world’s best ballpoint pen illustrators, and it’s not hard to see why. The attention to detail, the precision of every stroke and dot, the perfect proportions of various facial features, all come together to form drawings that are sometimes indistinguishable from photographs.

Read More »

Every year, landscaping experts from all over Japan get together to compete in the Key Truck Garden Contest, a unique event that has participants turning the beds of mini trucks into the most impressive miniature gardens they can.l The results are nothing short of awe-inspiring.

The Kei Truck, or “kei-tora”, is a small yet practical utility vehicle invented in Japan, but used throughout Asia, primarily in construction and agriculture. It’s been a part of Japanese culture for decades, and people love it because it provides plenty of space and it’s easy to maneuver on narrow streets. But once a year, Key trucks take center stage as canvases for ingenious landscaping masterpieces, during the Key Truck Garden Contest, a special event sponsored by the Japan Federation of Landscape Contractors. As you can see in the photos below, these mobile miniature gardens are something else!

Read More »

Looking at English artist Zulf’s portraits, you get the sense that they’re really simplistic in nature. They’re not the most detailed, heck they sometimes just outline a woman’s face, but that’s just what makes them special.

We’ve seen some truly mind-blowingly realistic portraits in the past, such as the masterpieces of Alena Litvin or those of Dylan Eakin; the works of London-based artist Zulf are nowhere near as detailed, but that doesn’t mean they’re any less magical, quite the opposite really! What makes these works unique is the concept of light being cast on part of the protagonists’ faces, which only reveals part of their visage, letting the viewer imagine the rest.

Read More »

Drawing something even close to resemblig art is hard enough to do with one hand, but doing it with both hands, at the same time, sounds downright impossible. That only makes this amateur artist’s skills that much more impressive.

Colin Darke, a lawyer and amateur artist from Detroit, has been getting a lot of attention lately for his ability to draw detailed artworks with both hands at the same time, often using different colors in each to highlight his ambidextrous technique. From portraits of celebrities, iconic film characters, animals an nature-inspired scenes, there’s nothing he 42-year-old can’t draw with his hands simultaneously. After keeping his skill a secret for most of his life, the amateur artist only recently started posting photos and clips showcasing his ambidextrous talents on Instagram, after being inspired by a motivational speaker.

Read More »

Daniele Barresi is a young food sculptor who specializes in turning avocados into veritable works of art that literally look too good to eat.

A native of Bagnara Calabra, Italy, Daniele Barresi has been carving ever since he was just seven years old. He has also experimented with a wide range of mediums over the years, from soap to resin and foam, but it’s his intricate avocado carvings that always get the most attention. Looking at the complex designs he is able to carve into the creamy pulp of an avocado, it’s easy to see why so many people are fascinated by Barresi’s avocado art.

Read More »

The pencil drawings of Enrique ‘Kike’ Bernal would look good enough with that mysterious, colorful glow, but there is no denying that the added effect makes them that much more intriguing.

The young Mexican artist usually relies on mechanical pencils and pens to create his cartoonish drawings, but he recently incorporated a new, digital tool into his arsenal – Medibang Paint, an app that allows him to add artificial lighting to his drawings. He still has to make clever use of the colorful, almost fluorescent glow to nail the effect perfectly, so it’s not like anyone ca use it to create the same style of artworks. The mysterious glow only adds an extra layer of creativity to Bernal’s already excellent sketches and add a modern twist the to centuries-old art of portrait sketching.

Read More »

Warped or cracked furniture isn’t ideal, unless it’s that way by design, which is exactly what makes the whimsical cabinets of Henk Verhoeff so special.

The retired carpenter from Auckland, in New Zealand, went viral the other day, after his daughter started posting pictures of his amazing wooden cabinets on Facebook. At first glance, they look digitally altered to create the illusion of cracks or warps, but in reality they are designed and executed that way by hand. And what makes his creation even more special is that they continue to remain functional, despite their apparent defects; the drawers all open and close, and despite the reduced space, thousands have declared their willingness to pay just to have one of Henk Verhoeff’s wooden wonders in their homes.

Read More »