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Willard Wigan is the creator of the world’s smallest sculptures, often taking months to complete one, working between heartbeats to avoid hand tremors. “You have to control the whole nervous system, you have to work between the heartbeat – the pulse of your finger can destroy the work.” Wigan uses a tiny surgical blade to carve microscopic figures out of gold, and fragments of grains of sand which are then mounted on pinheads. To paint his creations, he uses a hair plucked from a dead fly (the fly has to have died from natural causes, as he refuses to kill them for the sake of his art, preferring to decorate a glass sheet instead). His sculptures have included a Santa Claus and a copy of the FIFA World Cup trophy, both about 0.005mm (0.0002in) tall, and a boxing ring with Muhammad Ali figure which fits onto the head of a match.

[via Willard Wigan and YouTube]