Selcuk Yilmaz is an artist from Istanbul, Turkey whose work with sculptures, using many different materials. While previous sculptures included odd shapes, abstract body parts, and more, Yilmaz took a more realistic approach to his most recent work; a life size male lion.

Yilmaz slaved away for almost an entire year to finish the sculpture, and the time it took definitely reflects in the final product. The lion, which Yilmaz calls Aslan (Turkish word for “lion”), is made of roughly 4,000 pieces of hammered scrap metal which had to be placed individually, one by one, until the whole lion was finished. Not only is it impressive that Yilmaz hand built the 550 pound realistic lion, but he also hand cut and hammered all of his own metal.