David A. Lindon is a modern-day “Microangelo,” crafting some of the world’s tiniest sculptures and paintings. But his latest creation is on a whole new level. It’s a simple structure — three LEGO bricks: an eight-stud, a four-stud, and a one-stud piece. Yet, what makes it extraordinary is its size.

The smallest piece measures just over 0.02 millimeters on each side, barely larger than a human white blood cell.

“It’s madness, I know,” David A. Lindon tells BBC News. “I love the challenge. I love the discipline.”

A Delicate Process

Creating microscopic art is anything but easy. Lindon can only work at night when there’s no traffic, as even the slightest vibration can ruin his work. He’s trained himself to slow his breathing and time his movements between heartbeats because his own pulse is enough to cause disruption.

“I meticulously carve and shape my creations, slowly adding painstaking layers of detail and complexity. I paint each creation with carefully chosen pigments using microscopic-sized paint brushes. To begin, I sketch out my designs and I usually have to make several prototypes before I begin the final version. Each piece I create can take months of painstaking work before I am happy with the result,” Lindon writes.

His four-stud LEGO brick has already broken the Guinness World Record for the smallest handmade sculpture, surpassing the previous record set in 2017. The one-stud piece is even smaller. All three sculptures are invisible to the naked eye.

“The challenge to create tiny objects that can’t be seen without a microscope is demanding both physically and mentally”, the artist says in a statement for Guinness World Records.

Smaller sculptures have been created, but not by hand. To be considered for the record, the artist had to work with hand-made tools. He ended up creating his own tools to work with. After the sculpture was created, two separate teams verified and confirmed its size.

Lindon has a history of working with small things. Before becoming a microscopic artist, he worked on the small instrumentation inside airplane cockpits. After trying (and not quite succeeding) at becoming a book author, he turned towards microscopic art.

He created several impressive sculptures and paintings, including three microscopic re-creations of Van Gogh masterpieces on a watch mechanism which sold for over $110,000 (£90,000). He’s worked on Picasso reconstructions, Banksy reconstructions, and even cute Pikachu. But it’s not easy work.

The Perils of Microscopic Art

Working at such a scale isn’t just about eliminating tremors from his hands. Even static electricity can cause a sculpture to disappear in an instant. A single sneeze or cough can send months of work flying across the room — sometimes never to be found again.

“Once a piece is lost, you can spend hours hunting around for it with a magnifying glass in your hand and still never find it,” Lindon recalls.

In 2023, he accidentally ripped a Picasso reconstruction to pieces. “My heart filled with despair but very slowly and carefully I stitched her back together like a surgeon working on an operating table,” the artist remembers. The painting was repaired and eventually turned out to be one of his best works. A work on Amy Winehouse, however, wasn’t so fortunate. “It’s still somewhere in our bedroom carpet or stuck on the sole of my shoe, we never found her.”

As for why he does it, Lindon says it’s all about people’s reactions to it. Even though they can’t see it with the naked eye, people usually react the same way.

“I love the look of wonder and surprise on people’s faces when they see my art for the first time,” Lindon tells BBC News. “To see it in person, it blows your mind.”