Arinze Stanley is a talented young Nigerian artist whose works often leave people scratching their heads and asking themselves if they ’re looking at a pencil drawing or a high -definition black and white photograph . Yes , his drawing skills are that good ! Arinze ’s interest in art, and drawing in particular, was sparked at a young age , primarily by the fact that he was always surrounded by paper. His family ran a paper company , so he would often kill time by grabbing a piece of paper and trying his hand at drawing. But he only started exploring hyper - realism in 2012 , and became a professional artist a year later . He has never taken any professional art classes , and claims that the level of detail he is able to produce is solely the result of years of practice . Looking at his fantastic artworks, it’s safe to say that he has come a long way in very little time. “I ’ve got a slogan I work with and that ’s ‘Practice, Patience , and Persistence ’,” Arinze Stanley said in an interview with Ruqayya . “ They have actually guided me throughout the years and still guiding me till now . Constant practice, I think , made me better at what I do but It would not have been possible without persistence and patience, as I take over 200 hours to complete a drawing and I only have time to work during the night due to my busy schedule at work during the day. ” But it ’s not just drawing that Stanley puts a great deal of time into. According to All Africa , “when he ’s drawing hair in a portrait , he studies the kind of hair he ’s using as reference , the volume of hair , the size of the strands of hair depending on the kind of hair ,” in order to come up with the best way to replicate it on paper . Arinze says that he takes inspiration for his artworks from everything around him , and takes reference photos himself using a Canon Rebel T5 camera , but focuses primarily on portraits. He confesses that he often ends up staring at people’s faces unconsciously, and adds that being a portrait artist has made him appreciate the varieties of human facial structures and details. Stanley’s favorite artist is fellow countryman Kelvin Okafor, whose works we’ ve featured on OC a few years ago . The young artist also cites Okafor as the one who really got him interested in hyper -realistic drawing. It was after seeing some of his amazing artworks online that he started making photorealistic charcoal and graphite drawings of his own . With his latest artworks, Arinze Stanley joins the ranks of other hyper - realism greats, like Paul Cadden , Franco Clun, Douglas McDougall or Dirk Dzimirsky

I believe in the saying; "A Picture Is Worth A Million Words". Why not upload samples of his works and let them speak for Him(Stanley).

that guy is awesome