Aria, a talented Japanese artist who specializes in pencil drawings, has been getting a lot of attention for her jewelry series, a collection of hyper-realistic gem drawings that look better than their inspiration.

We first noticed Aria’s exceptional talent earlier this year, when we featured her most impressive drawings here on Oddity Central, but she has been honing her skills ever since and she is already going viral once again with an entirely new series, one that focuses on precious stones. One of her new works, entitled “Amethyst”, has gone viral on social media, with many users commenting that it actually looks better than an actual gem. Looking at Aria’s stunning drawing, I can’t say I disagree.

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Classic bento box arrangement can be considered an art form in itself, but there are some artistically gifted people that can take it to a whole other level.

Bento box art, aka kyaraben, is a big deal in Japan, so big in fact that it has its own social media platform where professional and amateur artists alike can share their creations. But even on there, some talents stand out, and that is definitely the case with Riyu Yuda, a young mother-of-one who started making bento box art as a way to make her four-year-old son enjoy the healthy treats she made for him. She specializes in anime-inspired edible compositions, creating detailed edible portraits of popular characters.

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Yuki Tsuboshima, a metalworking artist from Japan, specializes in ingeniously-designed, mechanical sculptures that turn into different shapes, like little Transformers.

As a child, Yuki Tsuboshima was fascinated by puzzle-like toys with movable parts and intricate mechanisms, and he never really outgrew this passion. He majored in metalworking, specializing in uchidashi, a traditional Japanese metalworking technique used to manipulate metals like copper, brass and silver. He then completed a master’s course in industrial design at Musashino Art University Graduate School in Tokyo, where he learned to use software like 3DCAD to create all sorts of shapes and mechanical parts.

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A New Zealand art gallery recently sparked controversy for displaying a controversial artwork consisting of a pickled cucumber slice stuck to the ceiling.

Titled ‘Pickle’, the thought-provoking artwork belongs to Australian artist Matthew Griffin and is currently on display at the Michael Lett Gallery in Auckland. It consists of a ketchup-smeared pickled cucumber slice out of a McDonald’s cheeseburger stuck to the ceiling of the art gallery it is exhibited in. The bizarre artwork is being described by the gallery as a deliberately “provocative gesture” designed to question what has value. Moore himself appears to think his creation has decent value, as it comes with a price tag of 10,000 New Zealand dollars ($6,200).

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French tattoo artist Veks Van Hillik specializes in clever black and white artworks that change shape when the person bends their arms or legs.

Tattoo artists usually steer shy of elbows and knees, because of the way their designs are warped when the client bends their arms or legs, but Veks Van Hillik embraces the challenge, creating mesmerizing tattoos that turn into something completely different when people bend and unbend their joints. Examples of these ingenious designs include an elbow-positioned scarab that opens its wings when the person straightens their arm or an expanding koi fish.

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Arsenic Junior, a talented self-taught artist from the Philippines, creates stunningly-detailed portraits of celebrities and popular fictional characters by scribbling on pieces of paper.

Scribbling isn’t usually associated with high-quality art, but artists like Arsenic Jr. prove that it can be a viable technique, even when working on detailed portraiture. Even though it might seem messy and careless at first glance, scribbling, when done by a true artist, can be awe-inspiring. Looking at the portraits below, it’s hard to believe they consist exclusively of scribbles, but a careful inspection reveals that to be the case.

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A museum in the German city of Wolfsburg recently removed a controversial art installation by English artist Damien Hirst after animal rights group PETA filed a complaint about it killing flies.

Flies are generally seen as annoying pests to be exterminated or at least kept at bay, but a controversial art installation featuring a fly-killing UV light has attracted the wrath of animal rights group PETA and sparked a heated debate about the rights of the flying insects. Titled “A Hundred Years (1990)”, the art installation by award-winning artist and entrepreneur Damien Hirst was recently removed from Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg after PETA filed a complaint claiming that it infringed on Germany’s Animal Welfare Act, which bans the killing or harming of animals without proper reason. Whether flies fall under that law or not is yet to be determined, but the decision has already sparked controversy in Germany.

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New Zealand-based tattoo artist, Benjamin Lloyd, specializes in impressive airbrushed tattoos for children designed to put a smile on his young clients’ faces.

It all started in 2016, when artist Benjamin Lloyd posted an image of a friend’s young son with a skull and roses design airbrushed on his arm and torso. It looked just like an actual tattoo, even though it was just spray painted on the young boy, and in only a day, Lloyd’s photo went viral, garnering over 400,000 likes in just a few hours. He had captioned the photo with a promise. If his post got at least 50 likes, he would go to a children’s hospital and give the kids there airbrushed tattoos to cheer them up. After his post got hundreds of thousands of likes, he had no choice but to keep his promise.

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Tiger Tomato, a father-son team from Melbourne, Australia, has been making waves online for their incredibly detailed and colorful pancake art.

We’ve featured some cool edible art in general and pancake art in particular here on Oddity Central, but the creations of Tiger Tomato are definitely a welcome addition to our growing collection. The father-son duo, who prefer not to be named, started posting videos of themselves making elaborate pancakes back in 2015, and in the seven years since, they’ve built quite a following on social media. Their vids regularly go viral, and once you watch some of them, you’ll understand why.

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Derek Turcotte is a talented tattoo artist from Canada who specializes in intricate tattoo designs inspired by popular video games and comics.

Owner of the Electric Grizzly Tattoo studio in Canmore, Canada, Derek Turcotte has also made a name for himself internationally thanks to his popular Instagram account where he shares his amazing designs with over 300,000 followers. The 36-year-old has been drawing since he was just a kid and he’s been doing tattoos for 18 years now, specializing in all sorts of intricate, colorful designs. But it’s Turcotte’s comic book and video game-inspired works that have attracted the most attention of late, and for good reason – they’re stunning!

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Randresson Vieira, a talented makeup artist from Brazil, can turn into virtually any cartoon and anime character using his insane bodypainting skills.

30-year-old Randresson Vieira, an architect and urban planner by training, puts his passion for fine arts to good use by turning himself into real-world versions of popular characters from beloved anime series like One Piece, Dragon Ball and Naruto. The young self-taught artist uses his insane bodypainting abilities to expertly apply layers of paint on his face and torso and completes the impressive transformations with hand-drawn paper cutouts of the characters’ hair.

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Xiang Duan is a multi-talented Chinese artist who dabbles in painting, sculpting and engraving, among other things. Her tiny bottle painting technique, however, is perhaps her most impressive skill.

While most of us can barely draw or paint a straight line, some artists can create stunning masterpieces with their eyes closed. One such example is Xian Duan, an incredibly talented Chinese artist who creates detailed scenes and portraits on the inside of tiny bottles, using a specially-designed tool. It’s hard for an artistically-challenged person like myself to even imagine the level of concentration and patience this sort of work requires, but it’s definitely the kind of skill that leaves one in awe.

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Arjan Boeve, aka ‘Above’, is a talented artist credited for bringing the old craft of stained glass-making into the 21st century by incorporating modern themes that the general public resonates with.

Stained glass is usually associated with religion, particularly with old churches and cathedrals, but through his project, Stained-Glass Geek, Dutch artist Arjan Boeve is showing younger generations that stained glass has a place in the modern world. Boeve’s stained glass stands out both because of its exquisite quality and crisp lines, but also because of its modern themes, including iconic video game, cartoon and anime characters like Mickey Mouse, Super Mario or Dragon Ball’s Vegeta.

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A former secretary turned confectioner has been making a name for herself on social media by creating ultra-realistic cakes shaped as everyday objects.

29-year-old Marian Sarkisian used to work as a secretary in Los Angeles, but after a week-long course in Britain, she fell in love with the art of cake-making and decided to turn her passion into a career. It all started in 2016, after a birthday cake made for her sister got a lot of attention from friends and family. Marian started a cake business and as her creations became more and more elaborate, she started getting flooded with requests for special events like weddings, birthdays and christenings. But just as things were starting to pick up, the pandemic hit and the young confectioner found herself with a lot of free time on her hands. That’s when she started experimenting with edible illusions.

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Esther Aular, a talented makeup artist from Bogota, Colombia, has been attracting a lot of attention on social media because of her impressive optical illusions.

The 29-year-old influencer, who goes by ‘Nekita’ on TikTok and Instagram, has been posting photos and videos of her transforming herself into various pop-icons and fantastic creatures using only her makeup skills and rudimentary props. From characters of popular cartoons like The Simpsons or Naruto, to brain-twisting illusions that leave viewers scratching their heads about how she did them, Nekita always finds ways of leaving her tens of thousands of fans in awe.

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