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The world is full of amazingly talented artists – people who can take ordinary everyday objects and make something extraordinary. Without question, Japan has its own fair share of talent, what with high school students creating beautiful murals with nothing but a stick of chalk, artists sketching insanely detailed drawings using a simple ball-point pen, and the awe-inspiring snow sculptures that are constructed at Sapporo’s snow festival each year.

Now, we have insanely detailed, hand-carved stamps made from erasers setting the internet abuzz.

In my elementary school days, when I would grow bored of class I was known to doodle on just about anything – my erasers included. My poor erasers also got cut, poked full of holes, and carved up too, but none of the end results came near to what was created here.

Erasers, cut, sliced, and pressed in ink to become incredible stamps:

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These painstaking creations, featuring characters and scenes from various anime, have caught the eye of many, particularly a number of web-users in Korea who have been left in awe.

“Seriously amazing.”

“This is beyond the level of a craftsman. LOL”

“This is art.”

“If they sold these I’d definitely buy them.”

“I’ve done this before in the past, but getting this level of quality is really difficult. One little mess up, and you can lose a line.”

“I got goosebumps…”

Hand-carving eraser stamps is not a new thing, and large eraser blocks and carving tools are readily available to anyone wanting to give it a shot. And while it certainly looks like a lot of time and patience was needed to carve all the fine detail into these eraser blocks, a lot of Japanese net-users don’t seem to see what all the fuss is about.

“This was popular when I was a kid. Most people in my class could do it. It just takes time. That’s why I don’t think it’s amazing.”

“It’s really easy to do, all you need is just a little bit of artistic inclination.”

“All they did was transfer an illustration onto an eraser block. After that all they had to do was carve, right?”

“You think these were made by hand? Looks like they were done by laser printer to me.”

But not everyone was a naysayer, pointing out that even if the image itself was just transferred onto the eraser, the perseverance and steady-handedness required to carve something so intricate is enough to marvel at.

So what do you guys think? Is this something that requires a lot of talent, or something that can be done by anyone with enough patience? Or were these not even hand-carved at all? Let us know what you think!

Source/images: Otonari Sokuhou