Bigger doesn’t necessarily mean better, and 51-year-old Malaysian artist Eddie Putera proves it with his stunning miniature dioramas. Putera combines his talents of miniature modeling and photography to create scenes so detailed that it’s hard to believe they are all hand-made mini versions of objects, and not real life still photography. Some of them take as little as a week to complete, and Eddie says that sometimes he manages to complete 5-6 of them in a month.

Eddie Putera always has a story to tell and creating miniature dioramas was the perfect way to visualize those tales. He built his first diorama about 3 years ago after realizing that the subjects of his works need a physical background to fully explore their history and context. Some of his miniatures are recreated completely from memory, as a way to honor and relive moments from Putera’s past. It’s especially difficult as some of the scenes no longer exist in the real world, so he has to either ask for his family’s input or try his best to remember the specifics.

Attention to detail and the ability to recreate various textures and objects make his dioramas extremely realistic, so it’s no wonder that his painstaking work attracted people’s attention. The artist not only sells his work, people mostly buy them as gifts, but also takes requests. On one occasion, a customer asked Putera to recreate his grandfather’s village and his old Volkswagen car. “The customer gave it to his grandfather as an anniversary gift and his grandfather shed tears looking at the diorama,” Putera told xtra.

Eddie Putera’s miniatures are truly impressive and we surely had to do a double take at some of the dioramas to make sure they weren’t photographs of real-life buildings. So scroll down, see for yourself and tell us what you think!

More info: Instagram

Eddie Putera is a Malaysian artist who combines his photography skills with miniature modeling to create stunning dioramas

The artist’s work is characterized by urban scenes and rustic finish

Putera says that he started creating dioramas to tell a story

Many people buy them as gifts, or request customized sets

A lot of his work features living spaces, overtaken by greenery

Though sometimes his miniatures look like straight from a post-apocalyptic sci-fi movie

The juxtaposition of nature and machine is a frequent theme in Putera’s work

And he perfectly recreates all textures, like sea waves crashing

Although people are not a frequent motif in his miniatures, Putera sometimes features them in living spaces

Watch this video about his work and the process behind it