Indonesian artist Eddi Prabandono has created a giant clay sculpture modeled after the head of his 5-year-old daughter, Luz.

Tourists walking through Taman Budaya Yogyakarta, in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, will be surprised to see a 4 meter by 4 meter child’s head made of clay, in a 2,5 meters-deep hole in the ground. It’s not exactly the kind of sight you normally see in Indonesia, but it’s definitely breathtaking to look at. Part of the “Luz Series” envisioned by Indonesian artist Eddi Prabandono, the giant head in question is actually modeled after the head of his daughter, Luz.

Although he had the help of 15 workers, Eddi also needed to rent an excavator to make the hole for his giant clay sculpture, but the 47-year-old artist is just happy he received the support of local authorities who allowed him to dig a hole right in Taman Budaya Yogyakarta. Luz’s giant head is made of 25 tons of special clay and was created for the 2011 edition of Jog Art, and artistic exhibition featuring 241 artworks by over 150 artists.

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Brendan Jamison is a young contemporary artist who creates arguably the sweetest sculptures in the world, literally. His designs are top notch, but its the sugar cubes he uses as building material that make his works irresistible.

31-year-old Jamison, from Belfast Northern Ireland, first started using sugar cubes as building blocks for large scale buildings in 2004, when he created a series of 9-foot-tall minaret-style buildings. They caused quite a stir in the art world, and even caught the eyes of building developers, many of which commissioned him to create sweet models of their architectural projects.

Although he has worked with a variety of materials throughout his artistic career, including  bronze, wood and wool, it’s safe to say it was his sugar-cube creations that brought him international recognition. “Sugar is a beautiful material to work with, it can be cut and carved into organic shapes, and the sugar crystals can provide a sparkling surface in natural light”, Jamison says about his favorite medium.

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Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and the work of Italian artist Dario Tironi is evident proof. While most people look at discarded objects and see only trash, he sees precious materials for his beautiful sculptures.

Old toys, discarded computer components, broken calculators, even plastic bottles, they’re all part of Tironi’s recycled universe. Similar to Robert Bradford, who uses old toys for his sculptures, and Leo Sewell,  the young Italian artist manages to glue together various junk items and create detailed sculptures of people and animals, and gives everyone who sees his art a whole new perspective on the concept of recycling.

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A unique cultural park made entirely out of clay has recently been open to the public, in Tangshan City, China.

Featuring rows of houses, busy streets filled with vendors and their carts, high ranking officials and horse-pulled carriages, the park is a reproduction of Zhang Zerui famous scroll painting Riverside Scene during the Qingming Festival. The man behind this unique project is a local from the city’s Fengrun District, named Qin Shiping. Tangshan has along standing tradition in ceramics, and Qin worked as a sculptor and painter ever since he was a young boy. In 2005, he got the idea to offer a unique view on China, and since he had always been a fan of Zhang Zherui’s painting, he decided to recreate the images depicted in the artwork with clay sculptures.

Qin Shiping put his idea into practice in 2008. He hired two clay sculpture experts with plenty of experience behind them, and 100 more regular clay workers who got started on the project. Three years later, the Tangshan clay sculpture park has finally been completed and opened to the general public. It’s 300 meters long and 60 meters wide and has been built at 2/3 life-size scale. The exact cost of the park hasn’t yet made public, but back in 2009, Qin Shiping stated he had already invested over 10 million yuan ($1,545,000).

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London based artist Justine Smith makes original sculptures and collages using real banknotes from various countries around the world.

From the artist’s website:

Paper has always been a primary material in the work of Justine Smith. Her current work is concerned with the concept of money and how it touches almost every aspect of our lives. She is interested in money as a conduit of power and also in the value systems with which we surround it. On a physical level a banknote is just a piece of paper, but it is what a banknote actually represents that is central to Smith’s work. Through her collages, prints and sculptures she examines our relationship with money in a political, moral and social sense, whilst also exploiting the physical beauty of the notes.

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It’s not as old or as long as the Great Wall of China, but artist Jamie McCartney’s “Great Wall of Vagina” is definitely more shocking.

The English sculptor has spent the last five years working on this controversial artwork, casting plaster molds of 400 vulvas of women aged 18 to 76. The models used for the McCartney’s Great Wall of Vagina include mothers and daughters, identical twins, transgendered men and women, as well as a woman pre and post natal. He wanted to include as many possibilities as he could, and during the five years of work looked for someone who had suffered from genital mutilation to model for him, without success.

So why does someone create such a bizarre, intriguing work of art? Well, according to the artist:

Vulvas and labia are as different as a faces and many people, particularly women, don’t seem to know that… showing the variety of shapes is endlessly fascinating, empowering and comforting. For many women their genitals are a source of shame rather than pride and this piece seeks to redress the balance, showing that everyone is different and everyone is normal.

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Artists have been using matchsticks as a medium for their art for a while now. Some use thousands of matches to create amazing wooden models, others use them to create colorful sculptures, or decorate their homes in a unique way, but I’ve never seen detailed matchstick miniature sculptures before.

I saw some interesting photos of carved matchsticks last week, while surfing the interwebs for unique art to share with you guys, but I couldn’t find any info on the artist who made them. Unfortunately, the research I conducted following my find didn’t prove very successful. All I learned is they are created using fine tools like scalpels and other specialized instruments, and that they’re mostly made by artists from South American countries like Chile, Argentina and Brazil. A miniature matchstick sculpture takes around three hours to complete and it’s then placed inside a small glass cover, for protection.

Among the most famous matchstick sculptors, I’ve found Christian Hernandez, who focuses of Greek mythology themes, and Argentinian Javier Gobai, whose detailed works you can admire in the photos below:

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All geeks love Transformers, but Yang Junlin of Huizhou, China, took his passion for the franchise to a whole other level when he opened the “Legend of Iron” factory and began producing his own robots.

Remebre that uber-cool Megatron Tank we featured a few weeks back? That was one of Yang Junlin’s iron masterpieces, but I had no idea he had created hundreds of other incredible metal sculptures. In 2006, after retiring from the army, Yang went to a concert where various steel sculptures were placed on display. Some of them were simple human figures created from twisted metal wire, but they made such an impression on him, that he decided to try and make his own steel works.

A year later, Yang Junlin opened his own factory, Legend of Iron, and hired over 10 workers to help him realize his dream of building cool robot sculptures. They use all kinds of scrap metal, from old car parts to simple sheets of steel andcreate some of the most amazing looking Transformers replicas I’ve ever seen. Although he admits his work is quite time-consuming, Yang has built over 1,000 iron sculptures since he opened Legend of Iron, five years ago, and isn’t planning on stopping anytime soon.

Check out more photos of the geek eye-candy Legend of Iron creates, after the break:

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Ripley’s Believe It or Not has recently acquired a realistic-looking sculpture of Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Terminator, and it that wasn’t cool enough, it’s covered with some of the most popular film characters created by Tinseltown.

Ripley’s has a variety of amazing stuff waiting to be discovered in its Odditoriums, but their newest attraction – a sculpture executed by John Ramos – may just be their geekiest yet. The life-size Terminator was designed as an homage to the American film industry and features depictions of some of the most popular characters in the history of cinema. Looking closely, you’ll discover three dimensional scenes from blockbuster hits like Rocky, Harry Potter, The Wizard of Oz, Jaws, Alien, Predator, The Simpsons, Spiderman, Pirates of the Caribbean and many more.

This unique Terminator sculpture is made of clay, resin, paper, plastic and even a real vampire bat, and took Ramos five months to complete. He is now working on a motorcycle to go with the statue and plans on covering with even more Hollywood inspired artworks.

The Terminator is currently on display in the Orlando Odditorium lobby, but will be transferred to the one in Hollywood, as soon as it’s renovation is complete.

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If you’re a fan of Canstruction art, you’re going to love this – a group of Thai students have built a replica of the new Thai Parliament building using around 200,000 food cans.

The event took place during the “Health Food and Ingredients Thailand 2011” exhibition and, as you can imagine, grabbed a lot of attention. The 200,000 cans were all placed by hand, and this one-of-a-kind replica of the Thai Parliament will most likely find a place in the Guinness Book of Records.

Just like it happens in Canstruction events, I’m sure the cans will be donated to various charities, as soon as the sculpture is dismantled.

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Using eggshells of different shades and tones, British artist Kyle Bean has managed to create an impressive sculpture of a chicken.

We’ve recently covered Kyle’s intricate matchstick insects, and mentioned that although he only graduated from art school two years ago, he’s a fast rising star of the art world, one who already has an impressive portfolio. He manged to prove me right by adding a few new works under his belt, including a unique chicken sculpture made of egg shells called “What Came First”.

It might not solve the ages-old question of what came first, the chicken or the egg, but it is clear proof of Kyle Bean’s talent, patience and attention to details.

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“Off the Roll” is a yearly tape sculpture contest that challenges people to create the best artworks they can by using only Scotch tape.

I never knew it was possible to create sculptures out of Scotch tape alone, but after seeing some of the things people made for the Off the Roll contest, I started thinking this is one of the coolest materials available. Now that I think about it, I should have realized that sooner, especially after writing about the duct tape costumes of “Stuck at Prom”.

This year, Scotch is offering a grand prize of $5,000 to the most original and best executed sticky tape sculpture, as well as three other $500 prizes for runners-up and a people’s choice award. If you’re interested in participating, all you have to do is stock up on Scotch tape, create an impressive sculpture, take up to three photos of it and enter it in the competition by the end of February.

Check out some of the most beautiful Scotch tape sculptures entered in this year’s competition, and make sure you visit the Off the Roll contest page to vote for your favorites.

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Ann P. Smith is a famous American artist who uses broken electronics and machine parts to create unique robotic sculptures.

A resident of Providence, Rhode Island, Ann P. Smith graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design, where she first got the inspiration for her unique art. She had received an assignment to create a three-dimensional technology illustration , but she was completely stumped until she saw a heap of junk with a telephone on top, which she used to create a horse sculpture. This won her great reviews and kickstarted her career as an upcycling artist.

The mechanical menagerie Ann created throughout the years contains a wide range of intricate creatures – goats, birds, jellyfish, lizards, etc – all made from computer components, discarded cell phones and various other salvaged scraps. Each creation has a unique personality reflected by the carefully chosen materials it’s made of, and is labeled by a line of keyboard keys.

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They say idle hands are the devil’s workshop, so inmate Daniel Watson tries to keep busy by creating these beautiful sculptures out of dried citrus.

I stumbled across Daniel Watson’s unique creations while reading Accidental Mysteries (the coolest outsider art blog I know) and they immediately caught my eye. They may look like ancient artifacts, but they’re really just dried citrus skins carved by Daniel, in his spare time. He’s serving a life sentence in a California penitentiary, so he’s got lots of time on his hands…

Described as “hovering somewhere between Pre-Columbian and alien,” Daniel Watson’s dried citrus skin sculptures have been sold at various art auctions. The two artworks below were created in 1998, but unfortunately, I couldn’t find any of his more recent creations. If anyone knows anything more about the artist and his work, please share with the rest of us.

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American artist Chris Cole uses scrap metal parts to explore the border between nature and industry, by creating unique mechanical creatures.

As a young boy, Chris grew up in the American Northwest, surrounded by an abundance of wildlife that later influenced his art. At the same time, he always had a passion for all things mechanical, and would often take stuff apart, only to put them back together in a radical new way. Nowadays, he creates moving creatures, especially from the avian and aquatic reigns, from various scrap metal parts, connected by heavy bolts and operated by bicycle chains and small motors.

While he is still fascinated by machinery, and was greatly influenced by the visionaries of the industrial revolution, Chris Cole is very concerned with man’s “disconnection with the natural world”, and his work represents a “regression  from mechanism back to organism.”

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