Tyson Fury microsculpture goes on display on head of nail

Heavyweight boxing champion Tyson Fury has been honoured with a microsculpture so small it is being displayed on the head of a nail.

The artwork, called Hard As Nails, has been created by Willard Wigan, a sculptor famous for his minuscule compositions, and is on display in Birmingham.

Mr Wigan, 64, said he has been inspired by Fury, who he described as “the modern-day Muhammad Ali” and “one of the greatest boxers ever”.

He told the PA news agency: “His belief system inspires everybody.

“Myself, when I’m doing my work, I’m getting greater and greater and greater, you know, that’s why I’m the greatest micro artist in the world.

“And I’ve paid a tribute to the greatest heavyweight, one of the greatest heavyweights of all time.”

Mr Wigan’s sculptures can be as small as 0.005mm and he places some of them within the eye of a needle.

The art is produced with an unusual set of tools – he sculpts with a piece of diamond attached to a fine hypodermic needle normally used in microsurgery.

He used the tool to make the Fury sculpture out of a nylon cable tie, before painting it, he said, with one of his eyelashes.

“That’s a difficult bit because once you start painting, if you put too much paint on, the head will start looking like Humpty Dumpty,” he said.

“Once I’d done it, I turned it around to have a look at it, and I thought ‘hmmm… I think I’ve got him there, you know, I think I’ve got him’.”

The artwork is on display at an exhibition of Mr Wigan’s work at the Birmingham Contemporary Art Gallery, called Willard’s World Of Wonder.

And he hopes Fury himself might pop along for a look.

“I’d be the happiest man in the world if Tyson Fury came to see it, came to the exhibition,” he said.

“I think I’d grow wings and fly around the room.”

Fury, 33, retained his WBC heavyweight title in a bruising fight with Deontay Wilder in Las Vegas last weekend.