Taipei: A Taiwanese man has tamed the tiger, reducing the Chinese zodiac animal into a sculpture smaller than a grain of rice that's fully visible only through a magnifying glass.

Chen Forng-shean, who has been sculpting as a hobby for some 30 years, carved from resin what he calls the world's tiniest tiger at 1 millimetre high and just over a millimetre long ahead of the Chinese lunar Year of the Tiger which starts on February 14.

But Chen said the brightly coloured beast nearly got the best of him over 10 attempts to create it.

"If the hands shake a little bit, the work would jump away and disappear," said Chen, 54, a minting plate designer by trade.

"For this tiger, the toughest part is because it is three-dimensional. It can be looked at from any angle and still seem very lively.

"Colouring is also very hard, with the patterns on his back and the red colour on his tongue," he said.

Three-month project

The single animal, created after three months of intensive labour, was finished in November and Chen said it was worth 3 million Taiwan dollars (Dh346,782), although it is not for sale.

Tigers, which rotate with 11 other animals on the Chinese lunar year zodiac, bring variable luck, being dependable and unpredictable at the same time. - Gulfnews