Full video

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When you think of a sculpture, you

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probably imagine one of these.

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But would you ever imagine something

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that can fit in the eye of a needle?

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Huh?

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Meet Willard Wigan.

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I'm Dr. Willard Wigan MBE.

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I make the smallest sculptures in the

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world.

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I've made 14 camels in the eye of a

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needle, the Queen's carriage, and I've

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made one of the Queen herself, Mount

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Rushmore, Sun See Kay Yacht, Evolution

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of Man, Marie Antoinette, Little Red

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Riding Hood, Einstein, and more. I'd be

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here forever trying to tell you that

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I've done that many, you know. It all

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began with an ants' nest. I thought the

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ants are homeless,

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so I started making them tables and

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chairs.

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I started picking up little fragments of

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splinter and slicing them and

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constructing and building little houses.

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I'm autistic and in school [music] they

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didn't really care. I call it a learning

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difference. I just learn different to

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anybody else. I started experimenting to

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see how small I could really go.

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How do you make something so beautiful?

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When I'm working on a microscopic level,

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I have to work between my heartbeat

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because if I don't, the pulse in my

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finger will cause problems. But the

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tools are very important because they

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all vary. There's all different types of

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tools. The cutting is the most important

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thing, slicing and twisting and bending

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and manipulating. [music] I use a little

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broken shard of diamond, smashed and

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it's like a little splinter. It looks

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like a stone age splinter been

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microscopic. So it's like my pulse is a

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little jackhammer.

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Chiseling away

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>> [music]

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>> till till I get get the shape I want.

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I normally pluck an eyelash out from the

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corner of my eye and then I attach it to

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a little cocktail stick and then I

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paint with it.

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I work on five at a time. [music] If I

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work on one, it'll drive me mad.

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I have two world records, [music] the

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smallest sculptures ever made by human

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hands. Not no machine, no

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nanotechnology.

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But these micro sculptures don't always

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go to plan.

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I remember once I was making a sculpture

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of Alice in Wonderland. After I'd made

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the Mad Hatter, then I made the [music]

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teapot. I made Alice separately and I

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was lifting her,

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put her into the needle and my mobile

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phone went off.

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I went like this,

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"Who's that?"

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And

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I inhaled Alice. It just went She's in

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my cavity somewhere.

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Gone.

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Yeah.

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The work that I do, it doesn't belong to

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me. I like other people seeing it. I

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like to sit there [music] and watch

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them. Some people burst into tears when

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they're seeing my work, you know.

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Brings it home to me when I've done. The

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time that I've put in has been worth it.

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So what next for Willard? An ice skater

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in the needle. Yeah, that's that's a

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good one.

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I'm going to do that, you know.