MINI BONZAI MODELS - TREE-MENDOUS

These are the fascinating pictures of miniature table sculptures molded around bonsai trees that take up to a painstaking 18 months to create. Japanese illustrator Takanori Aiba, 58, has built the intriguing scale models of windmills, lighthouses and even the Michelin Man.He delicately uses craft paper, plaster, acrylic resin, paint and plastic to create the host of sprawling miniature communities that wrap around the tiny trees.Following his work as an illustrator for Japanese fashion magazine POPYE he has spent the last nine years producing the detailed mini worlds.The creations take at least three months to construct with his Ice Cream Package Tower taking an astonishing 18 months work. Since 2003, he has made eight models, with 10 more planned over the next few years.

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