Young Potterheads in China are in for a real treat – they have the chance to study at their very own Hogwarts! Well, it isn’t really a school of magic – the building is a part of the Hebei Academy of Fine Arts and will house the school’s animation students. But who cares as long as you get to spend hours inside a magnificent castle that strongly resembles Harry Potter’s famous school, right?

Images of the impressive school went viral as more and more netizens began to notice that its various turrets and towers are a lot like Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. But the designers of the structure insist that they weren’t inspired by J. K. Rowling’s magical world; they simply modelled the castle after European architecture in general. They actually prefer to call it ‘Cinderella Castle’, since it features a gigantic clock tower.

Sadly, there won’t be any shifting staircases or talking portraits inside the castle. But it still is a pretty awesome place for a college. “We want our students to be inspired and this impressive fairytale architecture is exactly what they need for working in a creative environment,” a spokesperson for Hebei Academy said. “It’s important for the students and for the staff that they feel part of something special, and that is enough magic to ensure what we have created is a fine institution for furthering interest in the study of arts.”

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Dutch artist Stefan Bleekrode has been blessed with the most amazing talent – he can draw amazingly detailed sketches of cities he has visited, using only his razor-sharp memory as reference .

The 28-year-old has used his superhuman power of recollection to create ‘Cityscapes’,  a series of sketches of some of the world’s most famous cities, like London, New York and Paris. Stefan’s drawings are so mindbogglingly detailed that it’s almost impossible to believe he relies solely on his memory. Using just ink, he composes dense and realistic images of buildings, streets, lights, bridges and any other details his mind picks up. His sophisticated techniques – stark tonal contrasts, precise perspective, and stunning detail –  make each drawing look photographic, as if they were captured from an aerial vantage point.

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There’s more to the animal portraits painted by Florida-based artist Shannon Holt than meets the eye. If you look carefully, you’ll notice the canvases are actually human bodies contorted into just the right position.

The expert body-painter spends between 6 and 12 hours instructing the models to adopt the right stance and painstakingly painting every little detail of the animal she brings to life through her art. After experimenting with various mediums, Holt decided the skin was the perfect medium to express her talent. “The body was the final surface I tried before I decided skin was the key to making my work successful,” she said. “I love it because it happened automatically and beautifully with no planning – it’s a perfect creative example of how cool body painting can be. It can transform into two different images with the repositioning of the model’s arms and hands.”

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Andy Huot, a mechanical engineer from Louisville, Kentucky, spends his free time looking for recognizable shapes in bags of Cheetos Cheese Curls. Over the past year, he has spent hours opening bag after bag of the high-calorie snack, examining each nugget of puffed corn with the concentration of a museum curator. He takes photographs of all his exciting finds and shares them on Instagram for his 40,000 + followers to see.

It all started last October, when Andy was working on an invention at home. He got hungry, so he simply grabbed a bag of Cheetos and dug right in. Because his ‘creative mind’ was already at work, he began to spot seemingly ‘humanoid’ pieces. Intrigued, he clicked a few photographs with his phone and shared them with his friends and family who found it very funny.

So he set up ‘Cheese Curls of Instagram’, an account where he only posts ‘pictures of Cheetos that resemble things’. Within hours, he began to get hundreds of likes and comments. “I didn’t expect this response,” he admitted. “It motivated me to keep going to try harder.” So he did just that. By the end of last year, he had amassed a huge following with comments like: “this is the most unique and epic page on Instagram”.

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If you look carefully at Armenian artist Davit Yukhanyan’s meticulously intricate illustrations, you’ll realize that they actually consist of hundreds of smaller illustrations that make up the form, background and shading of the main drawing.

The incredibly talented 26-year-old has been drawing and creating for as long as he can remember. Although he works as an architect now, he tries to draw whenever he finds the time. “Drawing is my passion and music is my inspiration,” he said.

For his ‘drawings within a drawing’, he uses a technical pen and paper, and makes them entirely by hand with no digital manipulation. “Just as everything in our world consists of different pieces, my drawing also consists of different pieces in the form of small illustrations that come together into one overall creation,” he said. “I draw the artwork with this concept in mind.”

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Every day, heartbroken Masha, a brown dachshund, waits in vain at a Siberian hospital for her owner who died a year ago. Her sad tale mirrors that of the famously loyal Japanese dog Hachiko who waited for his master at a train station for 10 years. Owing to the similarities between the two dogs, Masha has earned the nickname ‘Russia’s own Hachiko’.

The sweet little dog has been visiting the Novosibirsk District Hospital Number One for the past two years, ever since her owner – a pensioner from the village of Dvurechie – was admitted. Masha was his only visitor – she would go away at night to guard their house and return to the hospital in the morning to keep the man company.

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Chinese martial arts expert Li Liangbin probably has the strongest neck muscles in the world. They are so strong that he can actually support himself and even breathe while hanging from a noose!

The 49-year-old from Lizhuang village, China’s Shandong province, said that he’s been practicing kung fu since he was a young boy. “Although I am now a kung fu master, I’m always looking for new challenges and new ways to discipline my body,” he revealed.

“Kung fu is my life and it’s important to have a challenge. Everyone knows about kung fu masters that can chop up concrete blocks or leap off tall buildings, but surviving a hanging is something new.” So he decided to toughen his neck muscles to such an extent that he would be able to survive even after being hung from a tree.

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Artist and photographer Bill Fink is the creator of ‘Time and Matter Photography’, an amazing art form that involves producing photograph-like images out of virtually any material or matter. So instead of conventional materials like silver halide or inkjet, the 60-year-old artist uses hair, human ashes, soil and anything else you can think of to painstakingly create photo-like images.

Some of Bill’s most notable works include a portrait called ‘My Eye’ – made entirely from his own hair, ‘Flowers’ – made entirely from the pollen of those flowers, ‘Quaker Oats’ – a picture made with Quaker Oats, and the image of a man named Bob, made using his ashes. These pictures look just like vintage photographs; nothing betrays the unique technique used to produce them.

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Canadian novelist and artist Douglas Coupland organised a colorful, albeit sticky, art project in May this year – he invited people to stick chewed up wads of gum on a seven-foot fiberglass statue of his own head.

Located on Howe Street outside Vancouver Art Gallery, the aptly named ‘Gumhead’ statue was a part of Coupland’s ‘everywhere is anywhere and anything is everything’ exhibition. By the time it was taken down on September 1, the statue was covered in gum to the last inch. And it had all melted thanks to the summer heat, resulting in a sweet sticky mess that attracted wasps and bees.

Coupland called it a total success, describing Gumhead as ‘ugly-beautiful’. “At first the added gum looked like jewels against the black,” he said. “And then the Excel chewing gum van parked beside it during the Jazz Festival and took the whole head to the next level. And then we had a heat wave and the gum started to weep. And now it has a 24-hours cloud of bees and wasps around it. It’s a dream.”

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Israeli artist Maor Zabar’s creations look deceptively delicious, but they are meant to be worn not devoured. He uses felt, plastic and wire to create incredibly realistic models of delicious dishes and incorporates them into fashionable headgear. Some of his clever designs include a berry pie beret, an outdoor picnic fascinator, and even a salad sombrero.

36-year-old Zabar began designing the hats a couple of years ago, when he was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease. “When I discovered I had Crohn’s disease, I was forced to start a special diet and was unable to eat many of the foods I have always loved,” he revealed. “So instead of eating them, I created them out of felt and fibers and made them into beautiful fascinators.” And although he’s cured of his illness now, he still loves adding new designs to his Food Hat Collection.

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Thomas Yang’s art is simple, minimal, and brilliant. The Singapore-based designer/illustrator couples his artistic talent with his passion for cycling to produce ‘bike print illustrations’ of world famous landmarks with bicycle tire tracks.

Thomas calls the series ‘100 copies’, because it is limited to, well, 100 prints per piece. The series consists of illustrations of some of the world’s most notable architectural landmarks, made using only the bike tires coated with black pigment.

Some of the most popular works in the series include illustrations of the London Bridge, the Eiffel Tower, and the Empire State Building. Each piece comes stamped with a quirky name and edition number, along with its own special bike-themed description.

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Brazilian artist João Carvalho may be only 15 years old, but his incredible talent more than makes up for his lack of experience. The young artist can completely transform plain paper into ruled notebook sheets with 3D illusions popping out of them.

He starts by drawing blue lines on a blank sheet, but distorts them and adds intense shadows at just the right places, adding depth to his dessigns and creating the effect of three dimensional shapes that seem to jump off the page.

Some of these shapes include popular characters like Homer Simpson, Scooby Doo, and Jerry the mouse. He also creates effects like ripples of flowing water and wrinkled paper.

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Italian performance artist Sven Sachsalber is basing his latest work on an age old figure of speech. He’s going spend two whole days looking for a needle in a haystack. Well, people have been talking about it for so long, I say it’s about time someone actually gave it a try!

For two days this week – Thursday and Friday – 27-year-old Sven will be combing a stack of hay in search of that elusive pre-inserted needle, at Palais de Tokyo, a contemporary art gallery in Paris.

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Artist Michael Grab is a master of rock balancing – he can pile them up in all sorts of gravity-defying formations, and believe it or not, there’s no glue involved.

Michael calls his art a ‘contemplative stone arrangement’ that involves ‘patience, adaptation, slow-breathing, steady hands and a plethora of other practiced skills’. His project, called ‘Gravity Glue’, has him balancing rocks of all shapes and capturing the impossible-looking structures on camera.

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This picture of an elderly man eating out with a photo of his late wife has melted the hearts of thousands after it went viral last week. It was tweeted by Madina Bashizadah, who clicked the picture while having lunch with a friend at In-N-Out Burger in Fremont, California. Since she uploaded the pic on October 22, it has been retweeted over 8,000 times.

Madina said that she noticed the man seated at a nearby table, eating his meal while staring at a framed photograph in front of him. She immediately interpreted that the woman in the photo must be his deceased wife. This moved her so much that she burst into tears and couldn’t bring herself to approach him.

“When I saw him, I got very emotional and started tearing up,” she later said. “My best friend wanted me to talk to him but I couldn’t without breaking down.” Other diners at the restaurant, however, did pluck up the courage to speak to the old man and ask him about the photo. He confirmed that the woman was indeed his wife who had passed away five years ago, and he seemed excited to talk about her and share their beautiful love story .

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