Have you ever tried building sandcastles in the sand?

If the sand is wet and damp, it can be fairly easy to mould but even then a gust of wind or a large wave can ruin everything in seconds.

This thought - of sand crumbling down and just ending up on a lump on the floor - is probably the biggest fear for 30-year-old sand sculptor Mohammad Ikhwan Ibrahim when creating an art piece.

The talented artist, Malaysia's only active sand sculptor, created a beautiful piece dedicated to our hardworking frontliners recently. 

"It took me 15 days to sculpt the artwork, and I was constantly worried about the sand crumbling. 

"With sand sculptures, you have to think. You have to keep in mind gravity, the particles of sand, the density of the whole thing and other external factors when slowly chiselling away at your creation," he said when speaking to Rojak Daily. 

The Penangite said that when thinking of the concept, he had actually pictured more figures - a delivery person, a firefighter, a policeman, the Health Director-General, a lab worker and a health worker.

"I sent a proposal to put together this artwork to the ministry and after they agreed and decided on an appropriate bugdet, we had to settle with four main figures," he said.

Muhammad Ikhwan, better known as Ikhwan Saloot, explained that despite reducing the number of figures, the artwork was the biggest he had ever worked on.

In fact, it took him 15 days to complete to carve out four figures using 2,000kg of river sand.