The deepest pictures ever? Artist spends 518 hours creating mind-blowing infinite zoom artwork

An artist has spent a whopping 518 hours across 8 projects creating 'infinite scroll' artwork that could be the deepest pictures ever. Yes, the deepest pictures. This type of art is made on a drawing tablet, and utilises the zoom function to mind-blowing effect. What seem to be simple pieces of digital art have incredible hidden depths – as you zoom into parts of the image you see they actually contain a picture within a picture within a picture.

Jesse Martin's art uses art apps Procreate and Endless Paper, and contains astonishing detail, with whole new scenes appearing within the unlikeliest parts of the paintings. A compilation video on YouTube highlights many of his projects, and also tells you just how much time the artist has spent on each piece.

See that video below, and explore more of the artist's work on his Youtube channel.

Infinite Zoom Compilation - YouTube

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To give you an idea of concept, 'Moon Train' begins with a picture of a girl looking out of the window at a moon. That zooms in to reveal a theme park on the moon, and a train that houses a separate and intricate climate in each carriage, plus a nightclub you have to take an elevator to.

While that scene contains an impressive three dimensions, or layers, another project 'One Piece' (below) goes on seemingly forever – and took Jesse 151 hours to create. Designed as a tribute to the manga by Shueisha, zooming unlocks layers and layers of detail (I think I counted six). As Jesse says this one is "basically fan art so I included a lot of references... I wrapped the whole story up in a giant burrito".

There's also a tribute to Dungeons and Dragons, which takes you through a window of an apartment block through a group of friends playing the game of DND and into the game itself. This one took 54 hours to create.

'Laptop Festival' is perhaps the most surprising because the initial image is so deceptively plain, with the inner images appearing on a seemingly innocuous laptop that is hardly noticeable at first. But each key on that laptop holds a separate and detailed world that represent a different genre of music – a surprising concept as I initially assumed the zoom would be on the laptop screen.

People are appropriately astonished in the comments, with many asking how they can explore it for themselves. "Each project is just the pure embodiment of creativity and imagination," one user says. "It’s been driving me nuts on how you do your water. It’s phenomenal," adds another.

"Imagine forgetting where you did the zoom," one user hypothesises. But another says that the app itself has a tagging function that allows you to set exactly where you're working.

It isn't just the novelty of the infinite artwork that's impressive here, it's the skill of the art itself. Jesse's style is intricate, vibrant and bold, the colour palettes are intoxicating and watching the layers of story unfold is addictive.

If you'd like to try for yourself, you'll need Procreate, and one of the best iPads for Procreate, plus app Endless Paper – this is the thing that enables the infinite zoom itself – and is available for iPad and supports Apple Pencil.