Whether in hunting or warfare, bullets are usually used for killing, but artist David Palmer has found a way to use these instruments of destruction to create beautiful celebrity portraits.

John Lennon, Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy were all great men, with one tragic thing in common – they were all killed by a bullet. Now, artist David Palmer has chosen to create portraits of these icons using probably the most unusual medium – bullet shells. After collecting enough bullet casings, the artist puts them together to create a metal canvas, and using a small hand torch darkens the ends of the bullet casings, creating incredibly detailed portraits. Using such a seemingly inappropriate art medium like bullets to depict their victims, Palmer hopes viewers  will “see the miracles that can arise from choosing to create rather than destroy.”

If you find bullet art interesting, you might want to check out the awe-inspiring miniature holy places made by Al Farrow, entirely out of bullets.

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Bulgarian artist Plamen Ignatov, has dedicated the last 16 years of his life to making a detailed matchstick model of the Rila Monastery, from around 6 million matchsticks.

Now, we’ve posted a lot of impressive matchstick creations, from the model of Minas Tirith built by Patrick Anton, to the matchstick fleet of David Reynolds, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a detailed model. Just hearing that the artist spent 16 years working on it, one can tell he was seriously passionate about assembling this matchstick masterpiece, and after laying eyes on it, you understand why it took him so long. The whole religious complex is incredibly detailed, with even the shingles realistically reproduced, and Ignatov even managed to fit a picture of Jesus into one of the walls, and painted religious figures on the wooden pavement of the monastery courtyard.

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7 Creepiest Abandoned Japanese Love Hotels (Environmental Graffiti)

The Cockiest Shrine Bangkok (Asia Obscura)

A Cheap Way to Turn Your Room into a Shrine to Star Trek (Facebook)

Woman Treats Pet Kangaroo Like Her Child (Huffington Post)

No Pants Subway Ride 2012  (Laughing Squid)

Unicorn Poop Cookies (Geekologie)

Braille Burgers for the Visually Impaired (Global Post)

Improbable Reptile-Insect Relationships (Environmental Graffiti)

Italian Photographer Launches Penis Calendar (Business World)

Animal Lover Keeps Horse in Living Room (Daily Record)

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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Japanese artist Riusuke Fukahori paints incredibly realistic three-dimensional goldfish embedded in layers of transparent resin. His artworks look more like photos of actual fish swimming peacefully in their little tanks.

Riusuke Fukahori’s work could best be described as a a combination between painting and sculpture. The talented artist creates his “living masterpieces”using a complex process involving layers of cast resin and acrylic paint. He patiently builds up his fish, layer by layer, adding transparent resin to create a realistic three-dimensional effect. Despite the tedious and complex nature of the artistic process, the end results are highly dynamic, capturing the animated life of the fish.

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Wine has been the inspiration of many famous painters throughout the centuries, but Florentine artist Elisabetta Rogai is taking the relationship between the drink of Dionysus and art to a whole new level, by using wine as paint.

Can a painting truly age? The concept was first explored English writer Oscar Wilde, in his book, “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, and now, over a century later, it’s taking  a new meaning in the work of Elisabetta Rogai. The Italian painter uses only white and red wine, with no other chemical additives, to create beautiful paintings. This “allows the wine to reproduce on the canvas exactly the same process of ageing that normally takes place inside the bottle,” she explains, adding that “the wine aging, which normally occurs over the years, takes only a few months on the canvas.” The difference between a freshly painted artwork and a three-months-old one is clearly visible; the texture changes and the colors evolve from young purples and cherry reds to more mature tones of amber, orange and brown. Unlike the portrait of Dorian Gray, her works become more beautiful with time.

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We’ve featured some pretty awesome mosaics here on Oddity Central, from Oksana Mas’ wooden egg mosaics, to the sweet jelly bean mosaics of Peter and Roger Rocha. But there are plenty of other incredibly talented artists out there who use the most unusual materials to create their art. Joe Black is one of them.

Using thousands of handmade badges depicting various images and icons, from the Vietnam War to Elvis Presley, Black manages to piece together amazingly detailed portraits. And if having the patience to create such wonderful mosaics wan’t impressive enough, nearly every one of the badges used is made by Joe Black himself, and relates to the artwork in some way. For example, the portrait of Superman is made up of corporate and fast food logos to depict the notion of goodness defeated by our ever-growing need to consume. A mixed media artist by definition, Black also makes use of oil paints, acrylics and other mediums to complete his modern masterpieces.

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Kopimism – a belief in the sacred right to share files – has been recognized as an official religion in Sweden, at the end of last year.

“Information is holy and copying is a sacrament. Information holds a value, in itself and in what it contains, and the value multiplies through copying. Therefore, copying is central for the organisation and its members.” This is how Kopimism is described on the official website of the Missionary Church of Kopimism. Apparently, ever since 2010, a groups of self-confessed file-sharing pirates have been trying to get file sharing recognized as an official religion. After having their claim denied several times, they’ve finally seen their dream fulfilled in late December 2011, when Kompimism was officially acknowledged as a legal religion. The Church hopes its new sacred status will remove the legal stigma  associated with file sharing.

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The words “beautiful” and “monster” don’t usually go well together, but when talking about a breathtaking natural wonder like the snow-and-ice-covered trees known as juhyou in Japan, we thought we’d make an exception.

Every year, during the cold winter months, snow monsters make their appearance on the snow covered slopes of Japan’s northern prefectures. But instead of running out of their way, tourists flock to these places to admire their natural beauty. Every one of these juhyou monsters is uniquely shaped by Mother Nature, who uses strong winds as her tools and thick layers of snow and ice as art mediums. Juhyou translates as “frost-covered trees” and is a popular phenomenon that takes place in many of Japan’s northern ski resorts.

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As real as these insects might look, they are actually made from a single sheet of paper, expertly folded by origami master, Brian Chan.

I’ve been staring at Brian Chan’s creations for a while, and I still find it mind-boggling how someone can produce such realistic work by folding a simple piece of paper. But 31-year-old Chan manages to do just that, creating realistic-looking insects that almost fool the naked eye. A craft instructor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Brian works on his impressive paper artworks in his spare time. Talking about his beginnings in the world of origami, he says “I started by copying work of other authors about 20 years ago but after a while I was good enough to start coming up with my own pieces.” His parents encouraged him by buying him all kinds of origami books, which proved great sources for independent learning.

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(NSFW) The Daily Routine of a World Champion Masturbator (YouTube)

China’s Giant Snow Sculpture Festival (Environmental Graffiti)

How to Make a Giant Snow Ski Rapm Off of Your Roof (Laughing Squid)

Cardboard Cop Cars Slow Chinese Traffic (Orange News)

Remote-Controlled Motorised Shoes Save You the Effort of Walking (Daily Mail)

Giant Wave-Shaped Clouds over Birmingham, Alabama (Life’s Little Mysteries)

World’s Shortest Woman Is Just 2-Feet-Tall (People Magazine)

Asia Obscura Tests China’s weirdest Potato Chip Flavors (Asia Obscura)

10-Foot Story Rocket Burried in Swamps of Florida (Environmental Graffiti)

Seoul’d Balancing Expert Is Awesome (YouTube)

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Alexander Kozlov, an 11th grader from Belarus, has recently made headlines, after spending and entire year building an impressive electric car, with the help of his family and friends.

At a glance, the white two-seat vehicle built by Alexander may look a little strange, with an unpolished finish and only three wheels, but make no mistake, it’s a working car that cost just 8,000,000 Belarusian rubles. That may seem like a lot, but it’s only $950. The boy, who lives in Grodno, originally started working on his home-made electric car as a project for an urban Olympics, but encouraged by his family and friends, he continued tinkering with parts until he completed it. He also got some help from teachers from his school, like Natalia Sakuta, who specializes in physics, and although the car really wasn’t very expensive to make, Alexander Kozlov admits he wouldn’t have been able to finish the project without such contributions.

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Chocolate Wonderland Opens in Shanghai (Sky News)

Real-Life Magneto Sets Spoon-Balancing Record (Reuters)

Guinness Names World’s Shortest Woman (TIME)

Brutal Modern-Day Jousting (Environmental Graffiti)

Japanese Create $130,000 Swarovski Crystal Toilet (Born Rich)

Dutch Airline Offers Miles-High Dating via Facebook (Big Pond News)

Facebook to Sue Israeli Mark Zuckerberg (Stuff.co.nz)

Old Man Turns Scooter into Funny Rolls Royce Replica (Metro)

Man Eats Light Bulb in 33.86 Seconds, Sets New Record (Record Setter)

10 Incredible Sunken Ships (Environmental Graffiti)

Although he tried his best to turn his old Pontiac Fiero into a beautiful Ferrari 355, a businessman from Agrigento, Italy, has recently been accused of trademark and patent violations.

There aren’t many car enthusiasts out there who can honestly say they wouldn’t like to have their own Ferrari. It’s the most iconic sports car brand in history, and all of its creations are widely recognized as engineering masterpieces, but unfortunately few of us can actually afford one. Case in point, an Italian businessman who wanted an iconic Ferrari 355 so bad he decided that if he couldn’t buy it, he was going to build it himself. But rather than starting from scratch, he turned his old Pontiac Fiero into an almost perfect replica of the vehicle designed by Pinifarina. He did a wonderful job both on the outside and the inside, and only a real connoisseur could actually spot any differences from the original, only he forgot one small detail before venturing on the open road in his fake Ferrari, the car’s registration.

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Long-gone are the days when painting was strictly done with specialized tools, like brushes, on canvases. Nowadays artists use anything from remote-controlled toy cars to Molotov cocktails to express their talents. So it should come to know surprise Kyle Lambert uses just one finger and the Apple iPad to create detailed celebrity portraits.

Kyle Lambert is a young English artist who specializes in portraits rendered using an iPad tablet and an $8 app, called Brushes. He only uses one finger as the brush, but judging by the detailed outcome, you’d think he has a whole set of professional tools and paints. Lambert starts out by sketching the basic facial proportions, drawing simple lines where the mouth, nose and eyes should be, making sure he gets the shape of the sitter’s head just right. It looks like the kind of sketch even I could do, but he says it’s the most important part of making a portrait, because it serves as the framework for the entire piece.

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