The work of Singapore-based artist Keng Lye could easily pass for some nice photos of sea life – except that they’re not photos, but three dimensional photorealistic paintings! Keng achieves the 3d effect similarly to 3d printer – he pours a layer of resin into a bowl and paints it with acrylics, layer by layer revealing more and more of each creature. His painting technique is almost the same as Riusuke Fukahori’s, but Keng found a new twist to it – he made his creations protrude from the surface.

Samuel Silva, a 29-year-old Portugal-based attorney, describes his artwork merely as a hobby, and Bic ballpoint pens – as only one of the mediums in his creative work. It takes time to believe that his drawings are not actually photographs, and then to absorb the information that they were created using only 8 different-colored pens.

When viewed from a distance, a portrait of Chuck Close’s grandmother-in-law looks like a classic black and white photograph. However, when you come closer, you start to notice that the picture is actually made of thousands of fingerprints. “Fanny/Fingerpainting” represents one of the largest and most masterly executions of a technique Chuck Close developed in the mid-l980s. That technique involved the direct application of pigment to a surface with the artist’s fingertips. By adjusting the amount of pigment and the pressure of his finger on the canvas, Close could achieve a wide range of tonal effects.

It’s hard to believe, but the picture above is not a photograph! It is a photo-realistic oil painting by Teresa Elliott called “Deliverance” – one of three Grand Prize Winners of the second annual America China Oil Painting Artists League competition.

It’s hard to believe, but these lively goldfish swimming in the bowls are not real at all! A Japanese artist named Riusuke Fukahori is painting these incredibly realistic three-dimensional goldfish using acrylic paint layered over clear resin. Just like 3D printer, the artists paints the fish layer by layer, with the sandwiched slices revealing slight more about each creature.

We’ve already looked at some unbelievably realistic drawings and paintings before but it’s nothing compared to what you are about to see. This time, let’s take a look at the works of some of the world’s greatest photorealism masters – Roberto Bernardi, Steve Mills and Erich Christensen. Forget about Photoshop, Maya or 3Ds Max – these guys have gone the old-school way.

It’s hard to believe, but the pictures you’re about to see are not photographs – they were all drawn using a single pencil! Paul Lung, a Hong Kong based graphic designer doesn’t even use an eraser – all he needs is a 0.5 mm technical pencil, A2 paper and some time..Well, about 60 hours. The artist even has to document his work process in order to prove that his works are actually drawn.

Spanish sculptor and artist Romulo Celdran (born in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 1973) makes hyper-realistic oversized versions of everyday household objects. Romulo says that his series entitled ‘Macro’ acts as a kind of traditional magnifying glass that draws us closer to the object worthy of observation even when we keep an appropriate distance in order to view it.

A Dutch artist Bert Simons takes paper folding art into the whole new level by creating these hyper-realistic 3D paper sculptures, and the best part is that you can build a 3D Bert portrait yourself! Print the 12 pages on thick (80 grams) paper and start making your own personal Bert.