It takes Wigan two to three months to produce one of his miniature masterpieces. He makes his works out of materials like a grain of sand, a flake of gold, or a microscopic piece of nylon.

To carve a rigid material like sand, Wigan says he uses as his chisel a sharp shard of diamond or some other hard gem stuck to the end of a needle. He has to look through a microscope to see his sculpture.