No Matter How Closely I Look,

all of these images,

 are so life like,

 I find it difficult to believe,

 that they,

 are made of charcoal and graphite, the artist occasionally using tiny points of white paint for those otherwise impossible highlights,

 “Highlights are impossible. Not difficult, impossible,” the talented artist said in an interview. “Because there’s no way to make a 2-dimensional charcoal drawing emit light. It took me a couple of years to come to terms with that.”

 also amazing is the fact that the artist, Dylan Eakin only started training as a hyperrealist artist in 2016!

to the untrained eye, his works seem perfect, but he is the first to point out that there are some things he simply can’t replicate, he plans to tackle color hyperrealism one day, “I feel like going in that direction would just be a natural chain of events, but right now there’s a whole universe in charcoal and I feel like I’m just scratching the surface,” Eakin told Artzine, 

completion time varies from project to project, Eakin said, adding that even though he always looks for ways to make the process more efficient, he constantly finds new elements to add, and that can really slow things down. He can finish an 18 x 24” portrait in about eight days of intensive work, though,

for more incredible charcoal and graphite portraits, check out Dylan Eakin’s website, and if you have time to look at 55 hours of work, the video above completes it all in just 90 seconds! some people are just so talented.