Earlier this year, Belgian film-maker and artist Vincent Bal stumbled upon an uncanny resemblance to an elephant in the shadow of his tea cup. This gave him the idea for Shadowology, a series of doodles that interact with the shadows of simple, everyday objects: a banknote, some ice cubes and a flower, for example, can turn into a church, a woman and a hippy. “I draw a few lines and I get my image. It’s really the shadows that inspire me”, Bal says. Here: “Stonedog”. (Photo by Vincent Bal/The Guardian)

A man walks behind camels at the Birqash Camel Market, ahead of Eid al-Adha or Festival of Sacrifice, on the outskirts of Cairo September 29, 2014. Birqash Camel Market, one of the biggest markets for camel meat in Africa, draws sellers from Libya, Sudan, Somalia and other regions in Egypt. The camels sold at the market are also used in tourism. Traders say that the selling rate for a camel in 2014 is anywhere between 5,000 and 20,000 Egyptian pounds (700 – 2800 USD). (Photo by Amr Abdallah Dalsh/Reuters)

Paula Duta is a Romanian illustrator who loves creating her artworks using pens, markers, and watercolors. This set of pictures shows the process through which she went to draw her most beloved creation – The Steampunk Lion. The picture came alive piece by piece, starting with the eyes, goggles, nose, and then the mane. All the little details of the lion were drawn with outmost precision, which clearly shows that Paula has poured all her soul into this piece of art. (Photo by Paula Duta)

Gaikuo-Captain is a young Chinese student of chemical engineering, and a talented illustrator. His passion for the comic was demonstrated by a series of works that combine drawings with photographs, so that he himself is "immersed" in a fantasy to interact with characters from comic books and manga. His pieces are successful in social networks, particularly in Weibo, Chinese social network where Gaikuo publishes. You can see all his work on his zcool profile.

Gaikuo-Captain is a young Chinese student of chemical engineering, and a talented illustrator. His passion for the comic was demonstrated by a series of works that combine drawings with photographs, so that he himself is "immersed" in a fantasy to interact with characters from comic books and manga. His pieces are successful in social networks, particularly in Weibo, Chinese social network where Gaikuo publishes. You can see all his work on his zcool profile.

“I was born in Zimbabwe, Africa in 1981 and grew up in Las Cruces, New Mexico. I graduated with a degree in Acting, and after college, worked as an actor and musician for the Santa Fe Shakespeare Festival, the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, and the California Shakespeare Theater. I have had a lifelong passion for drawing, painting, and sculpture since I first saw Michelangelo's “Head of Leda” in a book in the library”.

Grand Rapids (Michigan) based illustrator and artist Scott Gundersen creates his portraits from thousands of used and recycled corks. Starting with a large photograph that’s transferred to a drawing, Gundersen pins each cork to the canvas, creating a correlation between the hues of the wine-stained corks and the value of light or shadow in the portrait. Scott Gundersen has made these incredible portraits, one using 3,621, 3,842 and the other using 9,217 natural wine corks.

Mickey McCooper, born 1972 as Michel Valentino in Stuttgart-Germany, is a photo-artist, filmmaker, painter, and media-entrepreneur. He is well known for the broad range of subject matter he is able to interpret, he is widely recognized for his unusual people portraiture, his editorial photography, his photo illustrations, photographic design and his extraordinary repertoire of art photography, painings and drawings.

Photo: Space Invaders, 2011. (Photo by Mickey McCooper)