Japan: A Paper Craft Paradise

When it comes to creating art with paper, Japan, with its long history of making exquisite washi paper and its internationally recognized art of origami, has produced its fair share of amazing artists. From paper toys animated with paper and rubber bands such as Haruki Nakamura's pop-up penguin bomb, Seiji Tsukimoto's clockwork pop-up art, or Risa's intricately carved paper texts and animals, we have seen some remarkable artistry.

Paper Craft Artist Scissorhands

Combining realism with attention to detail and remarkable technical abilities, artist Masanobu Azami, who goes by the name Scissorhands, also deserves honorable mention among his Japanese paper-crafting peers. Just as comfortable making skeletons, like this one of a python stretching nearly 20 feet in length, as he is making small but realistic fish or beetles, his creations span the gamut of the plant and animal kingdom, with the occasional anime character thrown in.

But don't let the 20-foot skeleton fool you. Scissorhands can create minute masterpieces out of paper as well. In fact, it was his smallest creation to date that went viral last week when he tweeted it as part of a hashtag campaign for artists to introduce their representative works.

Mosquito

Behold, Aedes Albopictus, otherwise known as the Asian tiger mosquito.

His mosquito is not only accurately sized, only measuring mere millimeters in length, it looks anatomically accurate with an astonishing level of detail, from feet to antennae.

And since the infamous blood-lusting insects are rarely found in isolation, it's only natural that Scissorhands created more than one specimen.

If you saw this, your first instinct might be to swat your leg!

Scissorhands thought of that too, making a swatted version, complete with blood made of red paper...

Still not convinced these are made of paper and aren't real mosquitoes?

This should convince you otherwise:

Other Works

To get a better sense of the full gamut of Scissorhands' works, here are a few examples from his Twitter account:

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Links

If you'd like to admire more of Scissorhands' handiwork, please visit his website, Hasamic World, and follow him on Twitter.