This artist makes mindblowingly realistic art in a drawing app

There's a lot of talk these days about the photorealism of AI image generators like Midjourney and Flux, but sometimes we spot a artist whose work reminds us that humans can create even more realistic images through relatively traditional techniques.

The Japanese artist Nana creates incredibly lifelike 2D drawings using a fairly simple mobile app (see our pick of the best drawing apps for iPad Pro and the best digital art software for more options). The results have been stunning thousands of people online.

With a bio that reads simply 'I'm a person who likes drawing', Nana has been captivating some of the remaining users on X by sharing hyper-realistic drawings of human hands, everyday objects and flowers. What's most blown people away is that the images were made in MediBang Paint, a free drawing app for PC, Android and iOS. Nana's timelapse videos of hand paintings make the process look effortless, but the artist says that one of the drawings took a month to complete due to the length of time it takes to make each individual wrinkle.

For more examples of impressive hyper-realism in art, see our pick of the best realistic pencil drawings.