In the suburbs of Beijing, a 32-year-old engineer creates the kind of larger-than-life, shape-shifting robots that most have only seen in Transformers movies.

Sun Shiqian's roomy warehouse on the outskirts of Beijing houses a hulking menagerie, from a sleepy cow to a fiery metal dragon that stands 4.9 meters tall at the flip of a switch.

A graduate of China's prestigious Central Academy of Fine Arts, Sun worked as an engineer before deciding to devote himself full time to what he calls "robot arts".