Austin Bartz, 20, and his younger brothers Trevor, 19, and Connor, 16, spent 300 hours on the 12ft-high and 37ft-long snow turtle in the garden of their family home in New Brighton, Minnesota.

The talented trio have spent the past four years creating several impressive marine-inspired snow sculptures, including a huge puffer fish, a shark and a walrus.

Austin said: 'We created our first snow sculpture four years ago and we came up with the idea after I caught a puffer fish in Florida.

'We thought it would be fun to try and make it out of snow - and then it became a tradition.

'We learned to do it ourselves, but we have gotten a lot better over the years.

'We use just our hands to make the sculptures - but sometimes we might use a chisel.

'The turtle took over 300 hours, and the shark and walrus took around 100 hours each. But the puffer fish only took 8 hours to make.' 

The boys commit between 10 and 14 hours a day to hand crafting the amazing works of art and work in icy conditions, with the temperature dropping to as low as -15F (-26C).

Austin said: 'The turtle is our favourite, there was a lot of detail to be done and it turned out better then we expected in the end.

'We always stick with the theme of sea life every year and we try to pick something that has lots of detail. But this year we also wanted it to be kid friendly.

'We get a lot of reactions from people who see the sculptures - most are in shock because of the size.'

(dailymail.co.uk)