A small series by illustration Alex Solis remembering those things that used to rule the world.

A talented body painter has created a series of mind-bending illusions that cover entire torsos. Natalie Fletcher’s work are enough to make people double-take, the spiraling patterns of some appearing to fade into the abyss. In other works, the artists designs look as though they are never ending, while some show body parts appearing to protrude from models chests. The idea behind the ongoing series came to Natalie, 30, as a means of keeping entertained during the winter months. Here: Optical illusion bodypaint. (Photo by Natalie Fletcher/Cater News)

Cosplayers (left to right) Oli Hazeldine (dressed as Princess Adora from the animated series She-Ra); Val Imms (Catra from She-Ra), and Lou Frewin (Raven from the animated series Teen Titans) travelling on a Jubilee Line train heading for MCM Comic Con at the ExCel London in east London on Sunday, May 29, 2022. (Photo by Yui Mok/PA Wire)

The Mano de Desierto is a large-scale sculpture of a hand located in the Atacama Desert in Chile, 75 km to the south of the city of Antofagasta, on the Panamerican Highway. The nearest point of reference is the “Ciudad Empresarial La Negra” (La Negra Business City). The sculpture was constructed by the Chilean sculptor Mario Irarrázabal at an altitude of 1,100 meters above sea level. Irarrázabal used the human figure to express emotions like injustice, loneliness, sorrow and torture. Its exaggerated size is said to emphasize human vulnerability and helplessness. The work has a base of iron and cement, and stands 11 metres (36 ft) tall. Funded by Corporación Pro Antofagasta, a local booster organization, the sculpture was inaugurated on March 28, 1992.

Demonstrators help a fellow protester during clashes with security forces during an opposition rally in Caracas, Venezuela on April 4, 2017. Protesters clashed with police in Venezuela Tuesday as the opposition mobilized against moves to tighten President Nicolas Maduro' s grip on power. Protesters hurled stones at riot police who fired tear gas as they blocked the demonstrators from advancing through central Caracas, where pro- government activists were also planning to march. (Photo by Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters)

Nyaueth by Peter Zelewski – £2,000 third prize winner. This was taken near London’s Oxford Street as part of Zelewski’s series Beautiful Strangers. Zelewski explains: ‘The aim of Beautiful Strangers is to challenge the concept of traditional beauty with a series of spontaneous street portraits of everyday citizens who show character, uniqueness and a special inner quality’. (Photo by Peter Zelewski/Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize 2015)

Members of a Star Wars fan club wear costumes of movie characters as they join a midnight premiere of the new Star Wars movie “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” at a cinema in Stuttgart, Germany, late 16 December 2015 night. Numerous fans of the science fiction movie series were gathering to attend one of the midnight premiere screenings all over Germany of the latest movie of the epic series – “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”. (Photo by Nikolai Huland/EPA)

U.S. Marines, left, and South Korean Marines, wearing blue headbands on their helmets, take positions after landing on the beach during the joint military combined amphibious exercise, called Ssangyong, part of the Key Resolve and Foal Eagle military exercises, in Pohang, South Korea, Saturday, March 12, 2016. North Korea said Saturday its military is ready to pre-emptively attack and “liberate” the South in its latest outburst against the annual joint military drills by the United States and South Korea. (Photo by Kim Jun-bum/Yonhap via AP Photo)