If I walked past either of these men in the street I wouldn’t take a second look. As it turns out, Ghetti and Wigan happen to be two of the most unique artists around.

Instead of using pencils to create art, 49 year-old, Brazil-born Dalton Ghetti makes art out of them. Equipped with just a sewing needle, a razor blade and a carving knife (and even refusing the use of a magnifying glass) Ghetti spends months, sometimes years, creating tiny graphite masterpieces.  The remarkable thing about Ghetti is that he has never sold a single piece of his collection, opting instead to give them away as gifts to friends. In a society that is increasingly motivated by money it is refreshing to see the philosophy that Ghetti holds. Click here for a gallery.

Now if you thought Ghetti’s work was small and intricate you’ll be blown away by the microscopic and painstaking brilliance of Willard Wigan. There is even more artistic irony here as instead of using needles to sculpt his pieces as Ghetti does, Wigan makes his art inside of them. He uses miniature homemade tools and paints with a hair plucked from a fly’s back – no, honestly – to make micro-sculptures small enough to fit in the eye of a needle. An elephant carved from a fragment of a grain of sand, a doll the size of a human blood vessel and a figure of Charlie Chaplin so small it fits on the end of an eyelash are just some of his outstanding pieces. He is  forced to work inbetween heartbeats as even the slightest of movements could destroy months of his work.

Wigan says it is ultimately rewarding but that working on the pieces is ‘misery’. Now an MBE and having now sold his life’s work to a collector for twenty million dollars I hardly think Wigan will be feeling too miserable at the moment. Take a look here.