Teeny tiny Tyson Fury carved into the top of a nail

By Ed Chatterton via SWNS

A world-renowned micro artist has created a tiny sculpture of British boxing champion Tyson Fury - on the top of a NAIL.

Dr. Willard Wigan MBE, 64, spent weeks intricately carving the incredible figure of the Gypsy King, which is barely the size of a match head.

He even used his eyelash as a paintbrush after crafting the minuscule engraving out of a nylon cable tie and gold using a broken tip of diamond as a chisel.

"I have got a lot of respect for Tyson Fury. I am a big boxing fan and I always have been," saidWillard from Birmingham, England.

"I think what he has done for mental health is important too so I wanted to pay the biggest tribute I could in the smallest way possible.

Willard spent eight hours a day over a four week period working on the piece, titled "Hard as Nails", in his workshop.

The figure features a green set of boxing gloves and black shorts emblazoned with Fury's 'Gypsy King' nickname and was created completely from memory.

Willard said he wanted to pay tribute to the heavyweight champion following the successful defense of his WBC title against Deontay Wilder.

"I met him in 2019 and I just knew that he was going on to greatness. I don't think he will ever be defeated, he is like the Mohammed Ali of our day," he said.

"He just seems to have a mental mindset which I don't think will ever be matched so I wanted to honor his achievements with this piece.

"He is, of course, hard as nails so I thought it would be quite fitting to have him standing on top of a nail.

"They also say it's not the size of the dog in fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog - and that is something Tyson can relate to. People wrote him off because of his size when he was overweight, but he has been on one hell of a journey and deserves his success."

The sculptor makes microscopic art pieces, as small as 0.005 mm, which are placed in the eye of a needle or on the head of a pin.

To make the carvings he uses a powerful microscope to magnify the object 250 times.

"It is not my smallest work as I wanted to get a lot of detail in his face. I wanted to get that scowl he does, so it is undoubtedly recognizable as him," he said.

"I used a tiny shard of diamond as a miniature chisel and used by pulse as a jackhammer to carve it out.

"We haven't measured it but you can see it's barely bigger than the head of a match and I crafted it all from memory as well."

He has not put a value on his latest piece, but Willard's work has previously fetched between $123,133 (£90,000) to $273,630 (£200,000) and his fans includeQueen Elizabeth II.

Willard was awarded an MBE for services to art in July 2007 and holds several records - including the smallest hand-made sculpture in the world.

The sculpture of a human embryo made from a carpet fiber was placed inside a hollowed out strand of his hair. It measured just 0.07822 mm.

In 2012, he was appointed to commission a replica of the Coronation Crown of Queen Elizabeth II, which now sits at Buckingham Palace.

The Fury sculpture is one of 25 micro-sculptures that Willard is currently exhibiting at Birmingham Contemporary Art Gallery.