A snippet of the imaginative and ever-changing opening sequence of HBO’s Game of Thrones series is recreated in stop-motion using over 7,600 paper cutouts made with Moleskine notebooks in this 40-second video. Made by Milan-based animation studio Dadomani to promote the brand’s new Game of Thrones notebooks, the moving models mimic the computer animation seen on the show, wherein three-dimensional structures emerge from the surface of a map and spring to life.

Opening with a view of the sigil of House Baratheon, the video sweeps through King’s Landing as paper gears turn and spires begin to retract. The tiny paper houses disappear as the stag-topped sigil spins, and the camera pans out to a classic Tolkien-style map of Westeros before the scene splits into four pieces.

These four components are revealed to be the individual notebooks in Moleskin’s Game of Thrones series, each covered with the dire wolves of the Starks, the Targaryen dragon and the Lannister lion. A fifth notebook, the collector’s edition only available in Moleskin stores, features an image of the Iron Throne. The silkscreened covers were designed by emerging artist Levente Szabó, and each notebook retails for $19.95 – $25.95.

The designers of the original animation took inspiration from Leonardo da Vinci’s machines to achieve an effect appropriate for the fantasy series, which is set in a fictional country in a time period recalling the real-world Middle Ages. The cog-filled engines beneath the surface of the map that power all of the movements above represent the secret machinations of the series’ main families, the Houses of Lannister, Baratheon and Stark, along with all of their allies and enemies. Check out how the paper version was created in the video above.

An artist known for spending untold hours painstakingly hand-cutting tiny paper sculptures inspired by diatoms, bacteria, viruses, coral and other natural structures has augmented his process with the precision of lasers. Rogan Brown submerges himself in careful study of the tiniest of living things, such as the microbes and pathogens mimicked in his series ‘Outbreak.’ With ‘Magic Circle,’ Brown places collections of these cut-outs into a large circular display measuring about 40 inches across.

In his paper cuts, Brown “explores the boundaries between observational study and artistic interpretation, existing somewhere between scientific accuracy and pure, unbridled imagination.” While previous works have focused mostly on one type of microscopic organisms at a time, ‘Magic Circle’ brings a variety of them together in one piece.

“This piece is part of a new series of works that mixes hand and laser cutting to create an incredibly detailed and varied visual texture making multiple references: coral, bacteria, pathogens, diatoms, etc… each motif is however completely fictive and imagined; it is this interplay between the imagination and the ‘real’ world that fascinates me, reality is transformed and estranged through the creative process which paradoxically makes the finished work more real and unique.”

‘Magic Circle’ will be on display at Miami’s Aqua Art Fair, December 2nd through 6th. See more impressively intricate paper cuts in a range of styles, from dizzyingly complex patterns to tapestries that span several stories of a gallery.

Few people outside of research scientists are quite so well-acquainted with the bacteria that grows inside the human body as artist Rogan Brown, who spends up to four months studying, cutting and assembling his paper reproductions of microbes and pathogens.

The series ‘Outbreak,’ completed in 2014, was inspired by a meeting with a group of microbiologists planning a new exhibition center focusing on the human microbiome, and its exhibition just happened to coincide with the deadly ebola outbreak last summer, when everybody had infectious diseases on the brain.

“Fascinated by this hidden world I spent months researching the strange shapes and forms of microbes and pathogens,” says Brown. “I wanted to create a piece that examined our fears of the microbiological world, so out of one of the petri domes a group of bugs burst forth, full of ferocious uncontrollable energy.”

Stacks upon stacks of finely-sliced white paper make up each organism, nestled into white foamboard dishes. A more recent piece, ‘Cut Microbe,’ measures over 44 inches in length, about a half a million times the bacterium’s actual size.

The details are scientifically accurate, including the tentacle-like flagella that allow the bacteria to swim through our intestinal tracts, yet rendered in white paper, they become something aesthetically pleasing to gaze at, removed from the grotesque nature most often associated with them.

“People often marvel at the time I spend on a sculpture but Time is the fourth dimension that gives my work part of its value. Few other art forms foreground the amount of time spent making them as a paper sculpture does: every cut is a moment. The end result is the sense of something incredibly hard won and precious which is precisely the message I wish to convey: we need enormous concentration and effort to really SEE and appreciate what we see.”

Rendered in minute detail right down to curtain colors, satellite dishes and graffiti, these paper miniatures mimic London’s iconic Brutalist buildings, including the Balfron Tower and Space House. Two housing blocks that have been at least partially demolished are among the 3D cut-out models celebrating and preserving these oft-maligned concrete structures.

Zupagrafika design studio carefully studied each building, taking photographs from all angles to capture the smallest details. The collection of five models is available for €5 each at their webshop, arriving in a flat pack so you assemble the components yourself. The kits include short notes on the architects, the year of construction and the location of each building.

The studio previously created paper cut-out models of modernist buildings in Warsaw as well as notable elements of the urban fabric throughout Poland that were first designed in the ’60s or ’70s, including advertising columns, cars, traffic lights and ticket validators.

Brutalist architecture is one of the 20th century’s most controversial styles, criticized for being too cold and confrontational and nearly always made of raw concrete. Maybe it’s not for everyone, but anyone with a soft spot for its harsh angles and unapologetically utilitarian nature can now create their own little cityscapes on a table or shelf.

When Tomoko Shioyasu breaks out the paper and scissors, she does not settle for creating simple joys like paper dolls or delicate snowflakes. She transforms gigantic sheets of paper into some of the most delicate, intricate tapestries ever seen. Like many artists, Tomoko was inspired to create her incredible works by the awesome beauty of nature.

Looking at a leaf, it is difficult to miss the delicate yet lively patterns created by its veins. Noticing the same patterns while studying at the Kyoto City University of Arts, Tomoko Shioyasu decided to re-create some of these natural artworks. She patiently cut paper with a utility knife, working slowly and carefully to create the delicate shapes and organic patterns seen in her large-scale artworks.

Tomoko also sometimes uses a soldering iron along with special synthetic paper to melt holes. Walking among the finished tapestries gives one a feeling of being in nature thanks to the shapes that call to mind cellular structures, plants and the elements.

Resulting from her careful cutting and overlapping are these mind-blowing works of art which accurately represent many aspects of the natural world. Things which are normally difficult to depict like wind and waves are recreated with swirling cutouts and expertly arranged perforations. There is a decidedly Zen feel to these pieces, perhaps born from the tedious and repetitive nature of their creation.

(images via: Scai the Bathhouse)

The finished products are so much more compelling and beautiful than one might expect from paper cutout art. These huge pieces are somehow hung for display without ripping and falling to pieces. The space surrounding the tapestries even becomes a part of the pieces themselves, defining physical boundaries but never restricting the area inhabited by the positive and negative spaces of the tapestries.