Celebrities. Whether you slavishly follow every breaking news story about LiLo’s latest sexploit and R-Patz’s favourite new hair gel to the letter, or run away screaming every time an advert for ITV2 comes on, it can’t be denied that famous faces are everywhere we turn these days. Forget ultrarealistic HD photos though – a selection of artists have taken to recreating these illustrious mugs using everything from sweets to barcodes to even hole-punched paper for your viewing pleasure. Check out our selection of the world’s most inventive celebrity micro mosaics.

Nikki Douthwaite

Cheshire-born artist Nikki Douthwaite spends staggering amounts of time and patience to create her hole-punch paper portraits. Using tweezers and glue to arrange up to 600,000 dots on any one piece, her works include recreations of John Lennon, Marilyn Monroe and Muhammad Ali. Her portraits have earned Nikki a Guinness World Record for the biggest number of dots used in a single picture – as well as her fair share of strain injuries after spending endless hours manning the hole punch.

Jason Mercier

When it comes to creating micro mosaics of celebrities, there are few artists who have used as many mediums as Jason Mercier. From candy images of the Spice Girls to a noodle representation of Buffy the Vampire Slayer – and even edible election meat portraits of Barack Obama and Mitt Romney – he has literally done it all.

Scott Blake

Barcodes. Seen one, feels like you’ve seen ‘em all. Well, artist Scott Blake has changed all that. His barcode portraits use real barcodes to create impressive reproductions of famous faces, each one comprised of barcodes that are related to the subject. For example, his ‘Barcode Elvis’ portrait (pictured) uses barcodes from Elvis CDs – you can even scan them on your smartphone. Scott has also made portraits out of QR codes, book covers and even a self-portrait out of downloaded Ecstasy pills.

Nina Boesch

German artist Nina Boesch found a great way to recycle over 30,000 used NYC Metro tickets, turning them into eco-friendly one-of-a-kind mosaic portraits. Artworks include Woody Allen and Audrey Hepburn a la Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Considering each piece sells for up to $2,500, I wonder if I could do the same with all those old train tickets lining the bottom of my bag…

WBK

Artist WBK creates amazing celebrity portraits out of keyboard keys, and has recreated every famous mug from Nelson Mandela to Tom Selleck in his unique QWERTY style. Don’t be fooled by their realistic appearance though; they may look like compositions of physical keys, but all his artwork is 100% digital. Makes sense – after all, we’ve yet to see a computer with a keyboard coloured to Johnny Depp’s exact flesh tone in real life.