It’s hard to believe, but your eyes are playing tricks on you. The black liquid you see being poured into the cup in the photo below is actually just expertly sculpted and painted wood.

A year ago, Japanese wood carver Kibori no Konno (@kibori_no_konno) took to Twitter to share photos of some hyper-realistic coffee beans he had sculpted out of wood and then painted. They looked just like the real thing, and people couldn’t stop praising his talent. Since then, he has created all sorts of interesting sculptures, and to celebrate the piece that really kickstarted his year-long artistic journey, the Japanese artisan decided to do something really special. And that he did…

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A Japanese woodworker has developed a “three-dimensional wood inlay” technique that allows him to create exceptional artworks that require no coloring whatsoever.

From intricate carpets carved right into wood flooring, to whimsical furniture that looks warped and cracked, we’ve feature some awesome wood art over the years, but I think it’s safe to say that the creations of Japanese woodworker Toru Fukuda are on a whole other level than anything we’ve ever showed you before. The young craftsman garnered attention recently for his latest work, a simple wooden board with droplets of water on it. Only that water is actually wood that only looks like water. And that’s just one of the incredible creations Fukuda has produced, some of which look too good to be true.

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Arnold Schwarzenegger has been honored with several statues throughout his long and successful career, but few as impressive as the one recently carved by wood sculptor James O’Neal out of a single black oak trunk.

Standing at 1.88 meters, the statue took O’Neal six months to complete, and bears an uncanny resemblance to the “Austrian Oak” in his prime years, when he won back to back Mr Olympia titles. From his signature vacuum pose, to his 70’s hairdo and even the veins on his arms, the sculpture captures the look of Arnold Schwarzenegger almost to perfection. The entire process of shaping the black oak trunk into an ultra-realistic sculpture of the bodybuilding legend was documented on James O’Neal’s Instagram.

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You couldn’t tell by simply looking at them, but the fish, toast and various other foods depicted below are actually just blocks of wood expertly hand-carved and painted by Japanese artist Seiji Kawasaki.

Unsurprisingly, Kawasaki’s masterpieces have been getting a lot of attention online, ever since he started posting them on his Twitter and Instagram accounts. His creations are regularly featured on Japanese television and in various other media outlets, as well as art exhibitions around the country. Now, the internet has given the talented wood artist access to an international audience and they are just eating up his delicacies; not literally, of course, but I can understand being tempted to bite into one of his realistic-looking wooden croissants or chocolate bars.

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At first glance, Wendell Castle’s “Ghost Clock”, an art piece on display at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC, looks like an old grandfather clock covered in a white sheet. But looks can be deceiving.

What’s the point of displaying a covered up old clock in a museum, right? You’d be tempted to think the exhibit is temporarily covered up for reconditioning, but a plaque at the base of the artwork quickly clears things up for those interested enough to read it. Castle’s Ghost Clock was expertly hand-carved from a large block of laminated mahogany, white cloth, rope and all.

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Yuri Hvtisishvili, a carpenter from Russia, has created an astoundingly perfect wooden replica of the legendary IL-49 Soviet motorcycle. The life-size model is so realistic that you’d expect him to mount it and take off at any moment.

The idea for the project came to Yuri earlier this year, when business was slow at the carpentry shop where he works. He wanted to attempt something new and different, and that’s when he remembered something he saw on the internet – a master carpenter who had made full-scale models of motorcycles from wood. The idea inspired him, so he decided to replicate his favorite Russian motorcycle, the IL-49.

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China has a long-standing tradition in wood carving. For centuries, its chisel-wielding masters have been turning bland pieces of wood into awe-inspiring masterpieces, but none as impressive as the mind-blowing creation Zheng Chunhui. This talented Chinese artist spent the last four years painstakingly carving a detailed replica of Along the River during the Qingming Festival, a famous traditional Chinese painting, into a 12-meter-long tree trunk. The breathtaking beauty of his work simply cannot be expressed into words, you just have to see it for yourself.

As you can imagine, Zheng Chunhui needed mountains of patience to complete his wooden masterpiece, but it was all worth it. Apart from the praise of everyone who got to see the artwork up close at its recent unveiling, the Chinese artist was also honored by the Guinness Book of Records with the new world record for the longest wood carving. It measures 12.286 meters long, 3.075 meters high and 2.401 meters wide.

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Arizona-based Tom Eckert would be better off calling himself an illusionist rather than a sculptor. The talented artist somehow manages to turn hard wood into realistic looking objects, from flowing fabrics, to books and fruits.

It’s almost impossible to believe Tom Eckert uses traditional techniques to carve his amazing artworks from wood, but that’s just what makes him so special. Since childhood, I have been curious about and amused by mistaken impressions of reality presented as part of my visual experiences,” Tom says. “One of my earliest recollections, on a car trip, was my perception of the wet, slick highway ahead that turned out to be an illusion, a mirage.  The revelation that I was fooled, visually and intellectually tricked, stuck with me.  This visual deception is now the basis for my creative direction.  “Cloth” carved of wood has much different structural qualities than real cloth. When this idea is applied to my compositions (floating book, floating cards, floating rock) a sense of the impossible happens – for me, magic.” Not just for him, I’m sure.

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In this day and age, it’s hard to imagine someone making accurate clock mechanisms without using a single piece of metal. And yet, Andrey Martyniuk, a woodcarver from Belarus, manages to create intricate clocks exclusively from wooden components.

As a child, Andrey Matyniuk loved to sketch. He then got an education as an engineer, and later in life developed a passion for wood carving. After a master carpenter told him that wooden clocks are the pinnacle of perfection, he decided to combine all his skills to create artistic yet functional mechanism exclusively from wood. Bit it was easier said than done, and the ambitious woodcarver spent three years working on his first wooden clock. He tried copying the mechanism of a metal clock, but although the principle is exactly the same, there are two important things to take into consideration to ensure the clock measures time accurately – the softness of the material and the humidity of the environment. After years of experimenting, the master learned he had to increase the size of the gear teeth and treat the wood with a special compound to make it resistant to humidity. He also found that wood had a big advantage over metal – it has a much lower coefficient of thermal expansion, so it is much less affected by temperature changes than metal.

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Venetian artist Livio De Marchi is like a real-life Gepetto. Except, he doesn’t need a fairy god mother for his works to come alive. De Marchi’s works of art are so life-like, sometimes it’s hard to tell they’re made of wood.

The tools that De Marchi works with are fairly simple – a hundred varieties of chisel dated back to 1964, an old hammer and a steady hand – but the stuff he produces is nothing short of spectacular. A wooden replica of a leather jacket he made looks so real, you’d actually reach out to try it on if you didn’t know better. The only distinguishing factor between real and wood is that he doesn’t paint any of his creations, because he believes that the grain and knots of the plain wood are very intriguing. He spends hours at his workbench every single day, producing masterpiece after masterpiece.

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Kronid Gogolev is a master wood-carver who creates incredibly detailed artworks inspired by the rural and provincial life of Russia’s northern regions.

For our artist of the day we chose to showcase Russian veteran wood-carver Kronid Gogolev, a man’s whose intricate wooden paintings are nothing short of awe-inspiring. Using simple tools, he is able to turn rough pieces of wood into masterpiece depicting the way of life and the traditions of the Russian northern village, capturing its original beauty. Each of his creations has its own unique features and characteristics, but they all manage to capture the attention of the viewer, transporting him to the real-life picturesque settings of the north.

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We’ve featured some pretty awesome motorcycle miniatures, in the past, but few were as incredibly detailed as young Vyacheslav Voronovich’s wooden masterpieces.

The Lvov-based artist dreamed of owning a motorcycle ever since he was just a kid, and rode his first one in the seventh grade. At the same time he was always interested in hand-made miniatures, and developed a passion for woodcarving. So even though he couldn’t afford to buy himself a real motorcycle, he discovered he could create his own perfect wooden replicas.

The idea of making his first 1:12 scale wooden motorcycle first came to Vyacheslav a year and a half ago, and it quickly turned into a hobby. He was inspired by some other motorcycle miniatures he had seen online, and wanted to see if he could make his own, from wood. In the beginning, he had some doubts he could actually pull it off, but after figuring out what kind of wood to use for each component, things started going smoothly. He finished his first bike and noticed that every new one he created looked better than the last.

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What do you get if you combine the old fashioned skateboard with the talent of a dozen Indian woodcarvers? The answer can be admired in the photos below.

All commercially-available skateboards are artistically designed, but companies usually opt for spray paint, abstract graphics and prints to personalize the board. German curator Tobias Megerle teamed up with a dozen traditional woodcarvers from Mumbai to give the skateboard a brand new make-over inspired by traditional Indian patterns.

Megerle remembers “The very first time I drove past I was magically attracted to the carved wooden objects in Mahim, all the open workshops, the woodcarvers sitting on the floor with their traditional tools, working on their items, the whole atmosphere”. As an artist he wanted to do something with their work, and after several visits studying their craft, he picked the good old skateboard to undergo the carvers’ artistic treatment.

Tobias Megerle’s art project was named Final Cut, and its main goal was to keep the skateboards functional even after Mumbai’s carvers were done with them. The results are truly amazing, and the German curator hopes his project will lift India’s woodcarvers from the state of craftsmen to that of artists.

These traditionally carved Indian skateboards are currently on exhibit at The LOFT at Lower Parel, in Mumbai, where they will remain until April 12.

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Charlie Kestead, a talented woodworker from Johnstown, USA has spent ten years of his life carving the Declaration of Independence in dark walnut wood.

The giant wooden replica of famous document was completed a few months ago, after 10 years of constant labor. Kested would have probably finished it earlier, but a stroke forced him to abandon his project for a while. Although it impaired his speech and mobility, the dedicated woodworker continued work on his wooden masterpiece, as soon as he was physically able. Almost as tall as its creator, the wooden Declaration of Independence is an exact replica of the original document, down to the bottom signatures. Every letter and character was hand carved out of dark walnut and placed on a background of light Baltic birch, for contrast.

The 81-year-old retired teacher of industrial arts says it was a labor of love, despite the fact that it took most of his free time, during the last decade. He added that all of his efforts paid off when he was awarded first place and best in show at the 2010 Florida State Fair. Fellow woodmakers who saw Charlie Kested’s wooden Declaration of Independence were blown away by his unbelievable patience and attention to details. Every little bit of it is so precise, it’s almost impossible to believe it was done by hand.

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Sculptor Ian Brennan has spent 5,000 hours, in the last 17 years, carving a piece of timber into a miniature replica of admiral Nelson’s famous HMS Victory.

60-year-old Brennan, from Warsash, England, only became a full-time sculptor when he was 34, but in just five years time he became a sculptor of the Royal House. That’s how he ended up doing restorative work on the real HMS Victory, for about a year. As recognition for a job well done, Ian Brennan received a piece of timber from the legendary ship, which he later decided to use as material for a small scale replica of the Victory.

While you may think centuries old wood would be easier to carve, this particular piece of timber was as hard as concrete, and Ian had to much more work into it than expected. 5,000 hours, throughout 17 years, to be exact, during which he went through several pairs of overalls and cut himself countless times. Just like the original HMS Victory, Ian’s replica features 104 guns, 37 sails, flags bearing Nelson’s inspirational signal ‘England expects every man to do his duty’, as well as 200 feet of intricate rope.

Ian Brennan knew he only had one chance at doing something like this, as he would never again get another piece of timber from the original HMS Victory, so he made sure his 47-inch replica was just perfect. His family has been very supportive throughout the 17 years of work, although I’m sure his wife Suzanne wished her husband spent more of his free time with her.

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