Dr. Willard Wigan MBE has an attention to detail most of us only dream of. He’s known for his infinitesimally small sculptures, which he carves using tiny tools under the lens of a microscope. WIRED’s Obsessed sat down with Willard to learn about his technique and the challenges of working at such a small scale.
Even on our best Halloween, our pumpkin carving skills rate about a two on sculptor James Hall’s 13-level scale. The Halloween Wars two-time champ sat down with Wired to demonstrate how much more you can do with a Jack-o’-lantern than just saw out some triangular eyes and chunky teeth with a kitchen knife.
Artist Reuben Margolin is known for creating amazing kinetic sculptures. He recently shared this video which compiles four of his mechanical artworks including dancing rings, a crawling creature, and rippling waves. All we could think of was Sonic the Hedgehog running through that one with the golden rings.
Yellowpop teamed up with The Andy Warhol Foundation to create special editions of the pop artist’s works, lit with LED “neon” tubes. The series includes Campbell’s, Banana, Marilyn Monroe, Flowers, Cow, and a sweet forced-perspective Brillo Box. The four-square Flowers Deluxe and Marilyn Deluxe are limited to 25 pieces each.
Love ‘em or hate ‘em, Crocs are hot again, at least in the limited-edition game. Their latest drop is an over-the-top collection by LA-based artist Steve Harrington. Colorful and cartoony, each clog and slide in the collection includes Jibbitz charms of Harrington’s whimsical psych-pop characters. A Footlocker exclusive.
Illustrator DP Truong chose Johnny Depp’s Jack Sparrow as the subject of a pencil drawing. After he finished the 21 cm (8.26 in) black-and-white portrait, he kept going. Only for the next drawing, he went with a smaller piece of paper. Then he repeated the task over and over until he got down to a 0.2 cm (0.07 in) image.
Pop artist Mr. Doodle turned his entire house into a canvas. Between September 2020 and September 2022, he covered virtually every surface inside and out with his black and white doodles. Along the way, he used more than 900 liters of white paint, 401 cans of black spray paint, and 286 bottles of black ink, and 2296 pen nibs.
Inspired by the shavings created by sharpening pencils, designer Nanako Kume created a series of hanging lampshades with gigantic versions of the curly wood scraps. She started out by making an oversized pencil sharpener, then massive pencils to stick into it. Her process is just as fascinating as the finished pieces.
Artists often like to paint what they’re looking at, but this one takes things to another level. Döuyin contributor tcmss1.0 looked out beyond their tiny, tilted canvas and painted precisely what they saw – preserving the perspective and making the painting gradually disappear into the background.
Calligrapher Tohgutakumi previously showed us how to draw an alphabet that looked like dogs. This time, he kicks things off with a bird. Watch and learn how each of these ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs maps to a letter in the English alphabet.
Nerdforge has impressed us with their amazing PC case builds and bookbinding. In this video, Martina ponders how to determine the optimal time to spend on a project by painting the same scene over three different periods. Is there a point of diminishing returns, or do things just keep getting better?
Woodcarving Art has created some pretty amazing wooden models of vehicles, but this 22-wheeler is his most impressive yet. He started out with a big, heavy piece of timber, then gradually cut and carved it into a miniature of the imposing International Lonestar semi truck, pulling a 12-wheeled trailer behind it.
Artist Leandro Erlich is known for large-scale installations incorporating optical illusions. This simple yet effective illusion combines an image of a building with mirrors at a 45º angle, turning visitors on the floor into wall-climbing Spider-People. It’s on display at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston through 9.15.22.
Here’s another cool AI-generated video. Like SolarProphet did before, Daara used Midjourney to create a sequence of haunting and dystopian images based on the lyrics to the Styx classic, Renegade. Oh mama, I’m in fear for my life from the long arm of Cyberdyne Systems.
As we’ve seen in recent videos, AI technology is getting very good at creating art. SolarProphet has been using the AI tech Midjourney to create images based on song lyrics and posted this great sequence of digital art based on the ELO classic Mr. Blue Sky. Not every image lines up perfectly, but it’s still really well done.
Artist Greg Olijnyk makes incredible sculptures and dioramas out of cardboard, glue, and toothpicks (with a little help from coffee and whiskey.) Among his creations is David vs. G 2.0, a retelling of the David vs. Goliath story with a tiny cardboard samurai taking down a gigantic robot. His robot assembly line is fantastic too.
Inspired by the story The Library of Babel, the Babel Image Archives has randomly generated every combination of 4096-color dots that can fit into a 640 x 416-pixel canvas. In theory, that should mean the archive should contain an image of everything that ever has, will, or might exist. Solar Sands explains why it doesn’t.
All Bentleys are custom, but not to the degree of this one-of-a-kind tribute to late sportscaster Craig Sager. This special Bentley Continental GT Speed Convertible was built for a 2023 auction to benefit SagerStrong Foundation’s fight against blood cancer, with a design inspired by Sager’s bright, eye-catching blazers.
Clemens Wirth is a talented filmmaker who specializes in building miniatures and shooting macro footage of them. He recently compiled this awe-inspiring showreel of some of his most impressive 1:87 scale builds, including scenes set in the wild west, the big city, the country, the Arctic, and a galaxy far, far away.
Add your initials, a serial number, or other identifying text to your projects with these heavy-duty steel stamps. Hit them with a hammer to leave an impression in wood, leather, or soft metal. Each 36-piece set includes letters from A to Z, numbers 0 to 8 (9 is 6 upside-down), and an ampersand. Choose from 1/4″ or 5/16″ sizes.
TikTok channel The Art Room is packed with colorful illustrations created with pastels, pencils, correction fluid, and masking tape. This particular image features two people creating a beautiful sky with their flashlights. They took some artistic license with their additive color mixing.
Level up your desktop with a giant-sized mouse pad from Inked Gaming. They’re available in 35″ x 16″, 36″ x 18″, and 48″ x 24″ sizes with a smooth polyester mousing surface and an anti-slip rubber backing. With so many colorful and creative designs to choose from, it’s hard to pick just one. They also print custom designs.
Cameras can create art but are rarely artful themselves. They occasionally come in colors, but that’s about it. Filmmaker Dave Knop decided to test out his drawing skills using a hand engraving tool on the body of a cheap camera, giving it more personality. Though it did nothing to improve the camera’s awful image quality.