Looking at English artist Zulf’s portraits, you get the sense that they’re really simplistic in nature. They’re not the most detailed, heck they sometimes just outline a woman’s face, but that’s just what makes them special.

We’ve seen some truly mind-blowingly realistic portraits in the past, such as the masterpieces of Alena Litvin or those of Dylan Eakin; the works of London-based artist Zulf are nowhere near as detailed, but that doesn’t mean they’re any less magical, quite the opposite really! What makes these works unique is the concept of light being cast on part of the protagonists’ faces, which only reveals part of their visage, letting the viewer imagine the rest.

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Drawing something even close to resemblig art is hard enough to do with one hand, but doing it with both hands, at the same time, sounds downright impossible. That only makes this amateur artist’s skills that much more impressive.

Colin Darke, a lawyer and amateur artist from Detroit, has been getting a lot of attention lately for his ability to draw detailed artworks with both hands at the same time, often using different colors in each to highlight his ambidextrous technique. From portraits of celebrities, iconic film characters, animals an nature-inspired scenes, there’s nothing he 42-year-old can’t draw with his hands simultaneously. After keeping his skill a secret for most of his life, the amateur artist only recently started posting photos and clips showcasing his ambidextrous talents on Instagram, after being inspired by a motivational speaker.

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Daniele Barresi is a young food sculptor who specializes in turning avocados into veritable works of art that literally look too good to eat.

A native of Bagnara Calabra, Italy, Daniele Barresi has been carving ever since he was just seven years old. He has also experimented with a wide range of mediums over the years, from soap to resin and foam, but it’s his intricate avocado carvings that always get the most attention. Looking at the complex designs he is able to carve into the creamy pulp of an avocado, it’s easy to see why so many people are fascinated by Barresi’s avocado art.

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The pencil drawings of Enrique ‘Kike’ Bernal would look good enough with that mysterious, colorful glow, but there is no denying that the added effect makes them that much more intriguing.

The young Mexican artist usually relies on mechanical pencils and pens to create his cartoonish drawings, but he recently incorporated a new, digital tool into his arsenal – Medibang Paint, an app that allows him to add artificial lighting to his drawings. He still has to make clever use of the colorful, almost fluorescent glow to nail the effect perfectly, so it’s not like anyone ca use it to create the same style of artworks. The mysterious glow only adds an extra layer of creativity to Bernal’s already excellent sketches and add a modern twist the to centuries-old art of portrait sketching.

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Warped or cracked furniture isn’t ideal, unless it’s that way by design, which is exactly what makes the whimsical cabinets of Henk Verhoeff so special.

The retired carpenter from Auckland, in New Zealand, went viral the other day, after his daughter started posting pictures of his amazing wooden cabinets on Facebook. At first glance, they look digitally altered to create the illusion of cracks or warps, but in reality they are designed and executed that way by hand. And what makes his creation even more special is that they continue to remain functional, despite their apparent defects; the drawers all open and close, and despite the reduced space, thousands have declared their willingness to pay just to have one of Henk Verhoeff’s wooden wonders in their homes.

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Colombian artist Diana Beltran Herrera creates incredibly realistic bird sculptures by carefully attaching bits of colored paper.

To say Diana Beltran Herrera’s hands are super-precise instruments would be an understatement. The talented artist uses her innate dexterity and years of practice to create amazingly-detailed models of various birds, from the common sparrow to tropical parrots, out of bits of glued paper. To represent the birds as they are in nature, Herrera makes her sculptures life-size. Over the last decade, she has created paper sculptures of hundreds of bird species.

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Looking at the stylish garments made by graduating art student Rie Sakamoto, you’d be tempted to think they are made of brown yarn, but in fact, every piece in her collection is made of knitted rubber bands.

Rie Sakamoto is graduating from Tama Art University, in Tokyo this year and for her thesis she decided to focus on the humble but versatile rubber band. From a staple of office stationery to improvised wrist strap, the rubber band has literally hundreds of uses, but fabric for fashionable clothes most likely wasn’t one of them. But that was before Sakamoto got her hands on a few thousands of brown rubber bands and knitted them into dresses, bolero jackets, and more.

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Tributes to Kobe Bryant have been flowing ever since the LA Lakers legend tragically lost his life in a helicopter crash last Sunday, but one in particular managed to catch a lot of attention because it was only visible from high up in the sky.

Kelli Pearson and her husband, Pete Davis, run New Ground Technology, a company that specializes in creating high-definition imagery on living grass, and they recently showcased their services with a beautiful portrait of late basketball star Kobe Bryant. The 115-foot tall and 92-foot wide mural of Bryant was executed the company’s patented Turfprinter technology in a grass field at a park in Pleasanton.

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Hamit Hayran, Turkey’s number one egg carving artist, recently set a new world record for the most number of holes carved into a single chicken egg, 12,000.

It’s hard to imagine how anyone could puncture a chicken egg, even a big one, tens of thousands of times, but 62-year-old Hamit Haryran is an expert at it. After becoming disabled in 1988, due to an occupational accident, he dedicated most of his time to egg-shell carving, and has since become one of the most celebrated egg carving artists in the world. Apart from creating some stunning artworks, he has also been actively chasing the record for most holes punctured into a single egg. He first broke it when he carved  8,708 holes, beating the record of a Pakistani artist, then with 11,827 holes, and this last time with a whopping 12,000.

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The fluffy pillows of Norwegian artist Håkon Anton Fagerås look perfect for smashing your face into after a long, hard day, but I wouldn’t recommend it, since they are carved out of white marble.

For thousands of years, blocks of marble have been carved into awe-inspiring artworks by some of the most talented sculptors in human history. It is perhaps the most used material in the history of art, and for good reason. There is a certain elegance, even a delicateness to it, qualities that help artists use it to express the nuances of human emotion, despite its rigid nature. These properties of marble inspired Håkon Anton Fagerås to sculpt the rock into something that would embody its qualities perfectly.

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It’s hard saying goodbye to your favorite pair of jeans, even when they’re way beyond wearable, but English artist Ian Berry has found a way to avoid throwing away denim, by using it to create beautiful works of art.

Netherton-born artist Ian Berry, aka Denimu, has made quite a name for himself after his unique art took the art world by storm. It’s hard to believe the idea of using old denim as medium for his art came after a call from his mother, Christine, asking him to clean out his room.: “It was about six or seven years ago my mum was clearing out my old room and she wanted me to go through my things. I found loads of old jeans and denims and I noticed the different colors and shades. I kept hold of them but it was only about 18 months later I began to do something with them.” Little did he know his experiment would soon make him and his denim art famous all over the world.

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At just seven years of age, Mikail Akar is already a well-known name in the art world. His paintings sell for thousands of dollars all over the world, and he has already been given the nickname “Preschool Picasso”.

Born in Germany, Mikail’s talent for painting was discovered by mistake, three years ago. His parents bought him a canvas and some handprint paint and let him get creative with them. They has already bought him plenty of toys and action figures, so they thought they’d get him something different, but they definitely weren’t expecting him to paint a masterpiece. But Mikhail did such a good job with his first canvas that his father thought his wife had painted it.

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When it comes to hyper-realistic drawing, cats and other felines must be among the most difficult things to pull odd due to their fur. Getting every strand just right requires a steady hand and mountains of patience, and that’s what makes Yuki Kudo’s artworks so damn special.

Over the past decade, we’ve posted some pretty impressive hyper-realistic artworks on this website, so it takes some thing special to catch our attention. However, the first time I laid eyes on the color pencil drawings of Japanese artist Yuki Kudo, they took my breath away. I still find myself staring at some of his masterpieces, looking for clues that it’s just a drawing and not some digitally enhanced photo or CGI graphic. Oh, and did I mention he is only 18 years old?

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The first time people see Xiong Qingzhen’s toothpaste paintings, they’re not very impressed. Frankly, they look sloppy,, but then he flips the light switch in his bathroom and everyone’s jaws hit the floor…

Based in central China’s Hubei province, Xiong Qingzhen got the inspiration for his now famous toothpaste painting technique from his days taking photos with an old film camera. He found the way images on negatives were inverted in a dark room interesting, so one day he decided to apply a similar technique in the comfort of his own bathroom. Using the mirror as a canvas and plain toothpaste as paint, Xiong started painting “negative” portraits of popular celebrities. They didn’t look too impressive to the naked eye at first, but a simple flip of the switch revealed the true artwork.

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Over the years we’ve featured some impressive hyper-realistic art on Oddity Central, but when it comes to animal portraiture, I’m pretty sure Canadian artist Nick Sider takes the cake.

Nick Sider knew he wanted to be an artist since he was just 5-years-old, but it took him another 20 years to build up the courage to dedicate his life to painting. At the age of 25, he quit his job and started teaching himself how to paint with acrylic paints. Looking at his works, you would think Nick has decades of experience behind him, but he’s actually only 31-years-old, so to say that he made up for lost time in just six years would be a serious understatement.

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