After the success of their Superman series in 2013, the Canadian Mint debuted a new set of coins honouring the Man of Steel at this year's Fan Expo in Toronto. The collection is made up of three silver coins worth $10, $15 and $20, and a gold coin worth $100. Photo: Close-up of the $10 silver coin in the new Superman series from the Royal Canadian Mint. (Photo by The Canadian Press)

Founded in 1989, the Icehotel in Swedish Lapland is built from the snow up each year, using ice from the local river. The rooms are designed by international artists and this year feature spacemen and an ice queen. The hotel has 35 suites, featuring ice carvings designed by 36 different artists from 17 countries. (Photo by Asaf Kliger/IceHotel/The Guardian)

A bodypainter uses UV paint to create electrifying masterpieces of stunning landscapes on models. John Poppletons vibrant Bodyscapes feature bright savannahs, lightning storms and vivid galaxies leaping from the bodies of his subjects. The artist, who lives in Wellsville in Utah, USA, uses a black light on his paintings to make them look as close to real life as possible. He predominantly uses female models and often paints across their backs to give him the largest surface area to work with. Here: “Bamboo Mist”. (Photo by John Poppleton/Caters News)

The artworks that Alexa Meade makes are very unique and original. A usual painter creates a 2D or a 3D drawing on flat 2D surface. Alexa, on the other hand, draws over the body of a regular person, making them look like a 2D painting. The pictures of these people are almost uncanny, as you realize that the eyes “paintings” are real, and suddenly it dawns upon you that you are seeing a living and breathing human being. It is weird how we perceive this world, and how easy it is to trick our brain into thinking that it’s seeing a two-dimensional object. (Photo by Alexa Meade)

The illustrations created by Joao Carvalho are not just simple 3D drawings. By making it look as if various characters were drawn on regular note book paper, Joao fools our minds into thinking that the flat objects we see on the picture are actually 3-dimentional. To create these pieces of art, Joao first draws the lines of the “notebook” paper already bent, as if they stretch over the object that is about to be drawn. Then he applies shading and his masterpiece is all done! By looking at his pictures it is almost impossible to view them not as simple 2D drawings, but as real 3D objects. (Photo by Joao Desenhos)

KidZania provides children and their parents a safe, unique, and very realistic educational environment that allows kids between the ages of four to twelve to do what comes naturally to them: role-playing by mimicking traditionally adult activities. As in the real world, children perform “jobs” and are either paid for their work (as a fireman, doctor, police officer, journalist, shopkeeper, etc.) or pay to shop or to be entertained. The indoor theme park is a city built to scale for children, complete with buildings, paved streets, vehicles, a functioning economy, and recognizable destinations in the form of “establishments” sponsored and branded by leading multi-national and local brands.

In order to celebrate Movember (mustache November), artist and blogger Adam Ellis slapped handsome, flowing beards onto some of Disney’s most famous princesses. The idea came to him when a fan commented on a bearded picture he had made of Belle from Beauty and the Beast. One bearded princess became twelve, and now this strange image series is all over the web.
For more art inspired by Disney’s beautiful damsels, check out Dina Goldstein’s pictures of real-life Disney princesses and these pictures of Grumpy Cat in the Disney universe.

“I wonder about everyone that I photograph, what are they thinking at the moment, what is going on in their life, what are they really like. Photographs are such abstractions of real life, both true and false at the same time and so limited in the scope of what can be captured, yet limitless in how it stimulates our imagination. Indeed, photography is a rich medium”. – Mike Peters. Photo: Meatpacking District, NYC, September 28, 2012. (Photo by Mike Peters)