It turns out the secret to X-ray vision is a surprising item from a 100-yen shop.

Over the years, Japanese artists have been introducing us to a wide range of new and innovative techniques to improve our skills, with amazing examples of chalkboard art, online games and impressive art-in-motion projects.

While a lot of these inspiring ideas take a while to master, for those after a quick result that’s just as impressive, Japanese artist and illustrator @mag__ne has come up with another technique that’s currently wowing lovers of art and manga online. Using a simple tool from a 100-yen (US$0.89) shop, this art hack lets us peer underneath a character’s clothing, giving us X-Ray vision that opens up a world of possibilities for our future sketches.

Take a look at the video below to see what this character is hiding underneath his clothes.

To their credit, @mag__ne kept this illustration above board, by drawing the skeletal structure of the character beneath his clothing.

After posting the video, @mag__ne received over 40,000 retweets and more than 80,000 likes in just a couple of days, with Twitter users leaving comments like:

“This is genius!”
“I’m going to definitely try this out for myself.”
“Nice technique. Do you mind if I steal it?”
“This would work in so many different scenarios!”
“How on earth did you do this?”

According to the artist, all that was needed to get this eerie result was a “Secret Pen” purchased from a 100-yen shop, which uses fluorescent ink and includes a blacklight.

With a pen like this, all you need is some artistic flair and a creative eye to come up with all sorts of interesting images. And with Halloween lurking on the horizon, there’s no end to the holiday-themed sketches and skeletal Pikachu drawings we can conjure up!

Source: Net Lab
Featured image: Twitter/@mag__ne