At first glance, these pictures appear to show a normal hand.

But a closer inspection reveals a clever prosthetic in the place of the thumb.

The silicone digit is the work of a German company, who specialise in individually-tailored prosthetics to meet the unique needs of people who lose fingers, hands, toes, feet or legs, The Daily Mail reports.

The work is the brainchild of designers Alex Stamos and Christoph Braun, of Stamos and Braun Prosthesenwerk.

Mr Braun said the ethos behind their designs is creating silicone prosthetic works of art.

'We started our own business six months ago in Dresden, Germany with our special image and special prosthetics. We thought we need to make something special. We like to show people that a prosthetic doesn't need to look old and ugly.We like to give a good feeling to the patients. It is bad enough that they have lost something.So if we are able to make them happy with something cool, it feels good to everybody,' Christoph Braun told MailOnline.

He said each prosthetic is individually designed and tailored to ensure the right skin colour is match and the prosthetic is as comfortable as possible.

'If we only have a little thumb we can make it in one to two days. But if we make an individual silicone cover for the whole arm or leg it will take us up to one week,' he said.

Christoph Braun thinks it is the finer details that make the difference, with finger and toenails crafted from acrylic, the same material used in beauty salons create fake nail extensions.

He admitted while the prosthetics they create are more realistic, they do not function as well as those with built-in bionics.

But he said they allow people to live their day-to-day lives normally, and even allow musicians to continue playing their instruments.

The prosthetics range in cost from £1,460 to £5,000 depending on the type of prosthetic and the time it takes to craft the false limb.