Meet "the closest man to Stan Lee" in China's Chengdu

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After being smitten by a small and delicately made model of Iron Man, 35-year-old Wang Jin, once a director of an advertising company in southwest China's Chengdu, got obsessed with models of Hollywood superheroes, especially characters from Marvel Cinematic Universe and DC Comic.

"The bloodshot eyes and injuries were so realistic, which inspired me to make and modify these models by myself," Wang told The Paper, a digital news outlet in China.

A model of "Iron Man" made Wang Jin fall in love with delicately made models of superhero movies. /Photo via The Paper

Gradually, as more and more model lovers from China and abroad started visiting Wang asking him to alter their toys, he quit the advertising firm in 2015 to dedicate himself to working on the models.

Wang claims that the most difficult part of creating and modifying these models is hair styling, like cutting and shaping. Since most of the models are one-sixth of the size of a real person, wool is more suitable for hair styling.

To learn more about hairdressing, he has even visited several barber shops, and joined hairdressing chat groups on WeChat.

For most of these collectors, superhero models are nothing less than extraordinary pieces of pure art.

A portrait of American comic book writer Stan Lee. /Photo via Wang Jin's Weibo account.

"The more worn-out these models look, the more valuable and expensive they become," Wang told The Paper, "Every piece is unique due to difference in armor and attire."

A model of Daenerys Targaryen, a character of HBO series "Game of Thrones." /Photo via Wang Jin's Weibo account.

For Wang, superhero movie characters are like his old friends that live inside the screens.

Driven by soaring popularity of Hollywood superhero movies in China, the demand for delicately made models has been on the rise.

It has been estimated by some industry insiders that the number of core users of comic industry in China has increased from 49.84 to 80 million from 2014 to 2017. Currently, there are over 100,000 model collectors in China, as per a Xinhua news report.