Micro art: Chennai artist creates cute, handmade replicas out of clay

Right from childhood, Haricharan was passionate about art and sculpting. While pursuing an engineering degree, he started receiving orders to make stone sculptures. But he realised that it wasn’t commercially viable and instead started creating customised miniature versions of people with clay. This led him to start the company, My Cute Mini, along with his brother Sabaricharan Anand, in Porur. 

“Being an artist, I work with different materials and once I chanced upon synthetic ceramic clay. I made miniature models out of it and posted the pictures on Facebook. The response was amazing and I decided to give it a try,” says Haricharan.

A self-taught sculptor artist, he creates cute, personalised human miniature replica dolls made of ceramic. It’s handmade and customised from head to toe that resembles the person. “Around 90 per cent of the clients come to us asking to make replicas of their wedding pictures or their children’s pictures. A few have asked to make a miniature of their favourite cartoon characters,” he shares.

The artist says that such miniatures make for a beautiful and memorable gift for birthdays, weddings, anniversary, thanks-giving, homecoming and all other special occasions. Though it looks all cute and fancy from outside, the youngster says that creating micro art comes with its own challenges. “People expect more than what we could provide and that’s the main challenge. These personalised miniature dolls have an emotional element to it. They consider it as an emotional gift, so even small damage affects the person. We have to be very realistic about the final product,” he says.

A lot of detailing is needed to bring the exact finish and Haricharan and team take one month to complete a product. “Production time is very important – we finish and courier the dolls/replicas in a month’s time.” According to the art enthusiast, concentration and patience are the two key virtues required to make customised dolls.   

Though there are many noteworthy works done by Haricharan, the one memorable work was the replica of Mount Rushmore National Memorial. “The original sculpture’s roughly 60-ft-high granite faces that depict US presidents. Instead of the face of the US presidents, we did a miniature of four doctors. The final product was highly appreciated by many,” reminisces the 28-year-old.