With various tattoos covering 95% of her body, Julia Gnuse has been acknowledged as the world’s most tattooed woman.

What started out as a desperate solution to cover up lesions, caused by a severe skin condition, turned into a true passion, that earned Julia Gnuse a spot in the Guinness Book of Records, for the most tattooed woman on Earth. Miss Gnuse, also known as the “Illustrated Lady” suffers from porphyria, a disease that causes the skin to blister when exposed to sunlight. When doctors told her the only medicine that could help her, could also induce blinding, she decided to turn to tattoos, to cover the blisters on her legs.

A plastic surgeon suggested she tattoo her body the same color as the blisters, but since that was so hard to reproduce, she settled for some really colorful tattoos. At first it was just her legs, than she moved up to her stomach, arms and back, and be fore she knew it she was hooked on ink. She just kept adding tattoos, ranging from cartoons, film characters to jungle scenes.

All of Julia Gnuse’s tattoos were done by the same artists.

Photos by Seth Wenig/AP via DailyMail

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53-year-old Sergei Bobkov has patented a unique technique of creating amazing sculptures out of Siberian cedar wood-chips.

“It’s not very interesting to do what others can. To create something out of nothing in a completely new way is far more inspiring”. This is how Sergei Bobkov explains the unique form of art that he created. He says many people compare his artworks to taxidermy, because they both look so much like the animals they replicate, but Sergei believes they are as different as light and darkness. Whereas taxidermy is all about death, his wood-chip art symbolizes life.

This resident of Kozhany, Russia, has developed his very own technique, that prevents wood-chips from falling apart, in time. After creating about 100-150 chips, from 2-3 inch long cedar stick, he puts them in water for several days. Then, making use of his surgical precision, he carves the chips into any shape he needs.

Sergey has been doing this for some time now, but he has only created 11 wood-chip sculptures. That’s because just one of these incredible artworks takes around six months t complete, at a work rate of 10 to 12 hours a day, with no days off. Sergei Bobkov focuses on wildlife creatures, and he studies their anatomy for months, before starting work on a sculpture.

Even though he was offered $17,000 for his wood-chip eagle.Sergei’s Bobkov declined, saying his rt is not for sale.

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The “Walk on Water” challenge of Dixon High School has reached its 8th edition. Just like every year, since this event was started, students had to walk on water, without falling in.

Over 120 physics students, in 27 groups, tried to cross a 50-meter-long pool, in the 2 minute time limit, without getting wet. To complete this task, they were required to build mechanical gear that would keep them afloat and moving, at the same time. From giant hamster wheels, to floating skis, the students tried everything.

A few of them actually succeed in walking on water, and thus won the big prize: the chance to skip a final exam. Now that’s worth getting a little wet, over.

Photos by Renee C. Byer/Sacbee.com

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Seeing him rest on the steering-wheel of his toy truck, smoking a cigarette, you might think he’s a truck driver stuck in the body of a toddler, but Ardi Rizal is really just a two-year old boy who loves to smoke.

The 56 pound toddler, from Indonesia’s South Sumatra province, smokes 2 packs of cigarettes a day and sits on his toy truck all day long. There’s hardly ever a moment in the day when Ardi isn’t puffing away on a cigarette, and that’s the main reason why he can hardly move by himself anymore, let alone run along and play with other children.

His mother has desperately forced the toddler to quit, but he always got so angry that he started screaming and banging his head against the walls, saying quitting makes him dizzy and sick. He also asks for a specific brand of cigarettes, that costs his family $5.50 a day. While his mother is set on somehow getting Ardi to quit, his father says: ‘He looks pretty healthy to me, I don’t see the problem.’ Now this is what I call a “great” parent.

Although authorities have even offered the Ardi Rizal’s parents a brand new car, if they convince him to stop smoking, the parents don’t dare ask him anymore. Read More »

Ingrid Siliakus carefully cuts and folds layers upon layers of paper, to create some of the most amazing origami building designs.

The Dutch artist has been fascinated with paper architecture, ever since she first set eyes on the work of Japanese professor, Masahiro Chatani, who invented this art form, in the early 1980s. She studied his artworks for years, before starting to create paper buildings, herself. Over the years, her skilled improved, and she began making origami replicas of some of the most famous structures in the world, like the Colosseum of Rome, the Sagrada Familia cathedral, or the Palace Del Marques De Salamanca.

Paper architecture is so incredible, because the artist is basically creating a beautiful design, from a single sheet of paper. Ingrid uses 20 to 30 prototypes, before finishing one of her artworks, creating the first layer, with a single shape, and adding layer after layer, until she is satisfied. After the design stage, where the skill of an architect is needed, comes the cutting and folding stage, where she uses her surgeon-worthy precision. Her artworks are between 160 and 300 grams heavy.

Check out more of Ingrid Siliakus’ incredible origami masterpieces, on her online gallery, and her Flickr stream.

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Klunk Garden is a bizarre art installation createt by the Austrian art collective known as Gelitin. It’s basically a Zen rock garden with various human parts coming out of it.

You’ve probably seen some photos of the Klunk Garden before (I know I have), but they never came with some info about what exactly you were looking at. Gelitin is made up of four Austrian artists who like to shock the art world as often as they can. Their Klunk Garden was unveilled last year, in Tokyo, and combined the traditional Zen Buddhist garden, with some human parts coming out of it. The most disturbing thing about it was that those were the behinds, heads, and hands of real people standing below the art installation.

The Klunk Garden was widely interpreted as a bodily attack on Zen Buddhism, as the naked body parts interrupt the fluid perfection of the raked lines of rocks. Read More »

Lovely black and white photos, wouldn’t you say? Well, can you believe these were actually done completely by pencil?

Paul Lung, a 38-year-old artist, from Hong Kong, needs only an 0.5 mm technical  graphite pencil and sheets of A2 paper to create some of the most unbelievable works of art. Paul has loved to draw ever since he can remeber, and now he does it for 3-4 hours every day, when he comes home from work. He never uses erasers and spends up to 60 hours working on each of his drawings, but the results are simply breathtaking.

Paul says even his friends don’t believe he actually draws his creations, until they see him at work. That’s understandable, considering it’s practically impossible to tell they’re done by pencil, unless you get close enough.

Photos via BeautifulLife

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By strapping urinals on a bunch of trees, a Dutch designer has solved one of the most serious of men’s problems, finding a toilet when you need one.

Sam van Veluw came up with this interesting concept, one night, at a music concertm while he was desperately looking for a public toilet. As soon as his eyes met a tree, the idea of strapping a waterless urinal onto a tree, simply popped into his head.

Named the P-Tree, this outdoor urinal can be hooked up to a central sewer system, or an onsite infiltration system that would dispose of the fluids and nourish the tree with nitrogen, at the same time. I’m sure we’ll probably never see any P-Tree urinals, at least not in countries with indecent exposure laws, but Sam’s idea is definitely refreshing.

via Inhabitat

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The festival-friendly city of Leipzig, in Germany, has hosted the 19th edition Wave Gotik Treffen, considered the world’s largest Goth event.

Around 25,000 Goth fans, from all over Europe, gathered in Leipzig, four a 3 day festival (22 – 24 May), that started back in 1992. Covered in tons of eyeliner and makeup, and sporting shiny jewelry and extreme piercings, attendees paraded their eccentric outfits, on the city streets, and turned Leipzig into a dark fantasy realm, if only for a few days.

During the Wave Gotik Treffen, Goth enthusiasts enjoy Goth rock concerts, theatrical performances, film premieres, exhibitions and discussions on various philosophical topics. Take a look at some of the coolest costumes from the recently ended Wave Gotik Treffen 2010:

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In order to better familiarize the people of Chelyabinsk (the city that brought us the human smiley face) with the tragedies and heroes of World War II, local authorities have created a giant Hero Book.

6 meters long, 3 meters wide and weighing around 600 kilograms, the Hero Book of Chelyabinsk contains photos of the people who were killed here, during World War 2, and stories about how they fought for the freedom of Mother Russia.

Photos by CFP via Cri Online

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Inspired by a Charlie Chaplin comedy, the World Custard Pie Championship is held every year, since 1967, in the village of Coxheath, Britain.

Teams came from as far as Germany and South Africa to compete in one of the wackiest events on the face of the Earth. Working in teams of five, contestants had to throw pies as accurately as possible, and hit opponents in certain parts of their bodies, to gather as many points as possible. Hitting an adversary in the face, earns the maximum of six points. Judges will also grant an extra five points for original and amusing styles of pie throwing.

Twelve teams took part in the World Custard Pie Championship 2010, and the champions were the High Pressure Cleaning team, who disposed of last’s year’s winners, Coxheath, in the final match. The pies used don’t actually contain custard, but they are made using a secret recipe.

The World Custard Pie Championship began as a charity event, in 1967, and as the years went by, it became more and more popular. Now bankers, and other people working in stressful environments welcome the opportunity to just let go and pummel someone with pies.

Photos by DAVID ROSE via Telegraph.co.uk

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I’m glad to present an ice-cream that could go into the record  books as tastiest dessert ever created, the Every Topping under the Sun-dae

The idea for this delicious concoction belongs to the guys at TopCultured, who thought those giant Cold Stone ice-creams could be even better if they contained all the toppings the creamery offers. So they simply mixed all the 40 toppings (!!!) into one delicious piece of heaven, and had one guy go through the “torture” of eating the whole thing. In case your wondering, he did eat the entire Every Topping under the Sun-dae, and he’s still around to tell his tale.

This sweet heart-stopper consists of 1 quart of Sweet Cream ice cream, 1 quart of Oreo Cream Filling ice cream and the 40 toppings listed below:

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The Poutine Eating Championship is a yearly food-eating competition where the contestants have to eat as much poutine as possible, in just 10 minutes.

I bet you’re still stuck on poutine, right? Many people outside Canada have never even heard of this delicacy, but they just eat it up there in the north. Poutine consists of french fries, cheese curds and brown gravy. Some say it sounds disgusting, but I wouldn’t mind trying some.

Anyway, during the World Poutine Eating Championship 2010, contestants had to gobble up as much poutine as possible, in 10 minutes time. The winner, 24-year-old Pat Bertoletti, churned 13 lbs of the stuff, and won himself a $750 prize and a cool trophy. Asked what he was going to do with his prize, Pat said he will spend it in a bar.

REUTERS photos by Mark Blinch via Daylife

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One of the most popular exhibits at Ripley’s Believe It or Not, the famous Redwood Log House is made from the trunk of a single Redwood Tree.

Len Moore, the creator of this unusual house, got the idea to build the Redhouse Log House after he found shelter in the trunk of a burned down Redwood tree, during a storm. He decided to build his dream house out of the trunk of this giant tree, and spent months chiseling out the interior, and over a year to build it.

Building a house inside the trunk of a giant tree is impressive enough, but the mere fact that the tree was 1,900 years old makes it even more unbelievable. It once stood 247 feet high, and was 14 feet in diameter. Four log houses were built from the trunk of this Redwood tree, and the one owned by Ripley’s was the fourth cut from the tree, in 1938. It measures 33 feet in length and the 11,000 feet of lumber it contains, are enough to construct a five bedroom house.

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The village of Ganvie, in Benin, is the only human settlement in the world, built on stilts, in the middle of a lake, several kilometers from the nearest shore.

But people don’t just go ahead and build themselves a home, in the middle of a lake, they must have a serious reason. And the reason for the existence of Ganvie can be traced back to the 18th century, when a peaceful African tribe, the Tofinu, tired of running from the slaver tribe of Dom Homey, decided to build themselves a home, on Lake Nokoue.

The Dom Homey believed a terrible demon lived in the lake, and their ruthless warriors dared not set foot in its waters. The Tofinu had finally found their peace. But fast forward to present day,and the people of Ganvie are still reluctant to go on solid ground, although the threat of slavery is only a distant memory. They’ve ground accustomed to living on the water, and wouldn’t abandon their unique lifestyle, for anything.

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