Oddity Central

Mind-Blowing Landmark Artworks Are Made Exclusively with Doodles
Chinese Millionaire Works as a Street Cleaner to Set a Good Example for Her Kids
Creepy White Chocolate Baby Heads Are Surprisingly Popular

Mind-Blowing Landmark Artworks Are Made Exclusively with Doodles

Posted: 07 Jan 2013 02:54 AM PST

If you think doodling is just child’s play, you definitely haven’t seen Sagaki Keita’s works yet. This amazing Japanese artist can recreate virtually anything from classic statues and paintings to famous landmarks using thousands of tiny doodles.

We first discovered Sagaki Keita’s talent two years ago, when he took the art world by storm with his doodle recreations of famous masterpieces like the Mona Lisa, and now we’re featuring his work for the third time. The Tokyo-based artist has recently created a series of international landmark drawings, which when seen from a far seem to be really god pen drawings. But a closer inspection reveals countless entertaining characters doodled on to the canvas. It obviously takes mountains of patience to fill every inch of the white canvas with goofy drawings, and even to create well-placed shadows, but the final result is nothing short of awe-inspiring. His latest works include doodle recreations of the Statue of Liberty, the Eiffel Tower, Tower Bridge, Saint Basil’s Cathedral, and The Great Wave, by Hokusai.

via This Is Colossal

Mind-Blowing Landmark Artworks Are Made Exclusively with Doodles was originally posted at OddityCentral.com

Chinese Millionaire Works as a Street Cleaner to Set a Good Example for Her Kids

Posted: 07 Jan 2013 01:48 AM PST

Yu Youzhen, a millionaire from Wuhan City, China, has been making headlines recently, after it was discovered she works as a street cleaner, for a 1,420 yuan monthly salary, in order to set a positive example for her two children.

During the 1980s, Yu Youzhen was just an average vegetable farmer in the Hongshan District Donghu Village Huojiawan, working hard with her husband in order to save some money. After years working from dawn till dusk, they became the first family in the village to own a 3-storey house. At the time, a lot of people were coming to Wuhan looking for work, and many of them needed a place to stay, so Yu started renting the spare rooms in her home. Each room would bring about 50 yuan every month, and the resourceful woman used the extra earning to build even more houses and add more floors. After several years, she had three 5-storey buildings, most of which were rented out. Construction regulations were loose in China, and everyone was building houses, but Yu Youzhen really lucked-out when, according to the policies of requisitioning and redevelopment of land, she and her family were compensated with 21 apartments for the houses they had built in Huojiawan. She wasn’t the only one, of course, but she personally witnessed how fellow villagers squandered away their fortunes on gambling, drinking and even drug use, so she made it a goal to set a good example for her kids and act responsible.

Instead of staying home and counting her riches, Yu kept working as a sanitation worker, a job she had applied for in 1998. She has to be at work at 3 in the morning, six days of the week, and she spends 6 hours a day cleaning a 3,000-meter long stretch of road, sweeping and cleaning trash cans. "Mrs. Yu's family is so rich, yet still she comes to put up with this suffering" says one of the co-workers who don’t understand her motivation. "I want to set an example for my son and daughter, a person can't just sit at home and 'eat away' a whole fortune," the hard-working millionaire worker is quick to explain. After witnessing what great fortune and a bad attitude can do to a person, Yo Youzheng became determined to keep her family on the right track. She’s already warned her son and daughter: "If you don't work, I'll donate the apartments to the country." It seems to have worked, as now her son works as a driver in the Donghu Scenic Area, making over 2,000 yuan a month, and her daughter is an office worker, with a 3,000 yuan salary.

via ChinaSmack

Chinese Millionaire Works as a Street Cleaner to Set a Good Example for Her Kids was originally posted at OddityCentral.com

Creepy White Chocolate Baby Heads Are Surprisingly Popular

Posted: 07 Jan 2013 12:57 AM PST

I’m a big fan of white chocolate, but not even the strongest sweets craving couldn’t make me take a bite out of Annabel de Vetten’s creepy baby heads. They’re way too scary for me, but according to the English food artist they’re quite a hit at parties and baby showers.

The disturbing white chocolate artworks were originally designed as a private commission, but apparently they came out so good that Annabel decided to make several more. Then, her works were discovered by strange cake curator Miss Cakehead, who also brought the infamous STD Cupcakes to our attention, and now the eerily realistic newborn baby heads are a popular chocolate treat. ”I just pictured ‘dead, milky eyes and skin’ and hit the nail on the so to speak. And creased the mold while it was setting to get a soft, ‘damaged’ effect. So, strangely enough, no challenge! I was a little worried some might think this is going a bit too far. But it’s only chocolate and if someone doesn’t like the shape it’s in, they can just go buy a Mars bar,” de Vetten told HuffPost.

The life-size baby heads are made with a latex mold the artist used to create candles with, and contain about 5,000 calories (double the daily intake for an average man). 41-year-old Annabel de Vetten says the white chocolate heads are too big for the average person to bite on, so she suggests smashing them with a hammer… She admits not everyone’s crazy about her original dessert, but she’s still swamped with orders from people who want the creepy sweets for parties and even baby showers.