An artist has spent three years scouring the globe for individual rocks which resemble body parts - to make a remarkable 2.5-tonne sculpture of the human form.

Duncan Elliott, 43, hauled stones ranging from the size of marbles up to 90kg from fields and mountains across Europe.

Each rock he used was precisely the right form - and proportionally the right size - for the body part it represents and has not been chipped or shaped.

Quarry man: Fallen Angel, built from 300 individual pieces of stone which the sculptor hauled from across Europe
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The biggest is a 90kg piece of Mendip limestone, for the belly. The smallest are pieces of limestone from Crete weighing less than a gramme each, for the fingernails.

Elliott attached the 300 rocks using a hidden steel cable skeleton to produce the 20ft-high Fallen Angel, which represents Satan being thrown out of heaven.

It has now been unveiled as the centrepiece of the Crown Plaza Hotel in Liverpool.

Elliott said: "The stones have flowing lines where they've been weathered by the elements over the years that give each one a uniquely natural shape.

"Putting it together is not easy. It's a labour of love, rolling boulders across mountain sides, but it puts you closer to the materials you are using.

"Some people think you're mad when you start looking at pebbles and telling them they'd make the perfect fingernail, but that's what's so exciting.

"You never know where you are going to find your next body part."

Elliott, from Bristol, studied at Bath Academy of Art, Leeds Polytechnic and then Goldsmiths College, London, and now has a studio at a farm on the Mendip Hills in Somerset where he pieced the sculpture together.

He has made around 60 sculptures over the last seven years and began after he was inspired by traditional Greek statues while living in Crete.

The majority of the rocks for Fallen Angel were found on the Mendips but others came from scouting missions across Europe, including return trips to Crete. All were lugged back by hand in a backpack or a sack trolley.

It took six-day weeks and 17-hour days to complete over three years, costing Elliott around £30,000 in labour and materials.

Piecing it together: Duncan Elliott at work in his studio, where he now hopes to produce even larger sculptures using his strictly chisel-free technique

Fallen Angel is the largest piece he has created so far - his last was only 2ft tall - but now he hopes to take on even bigger challenges.

He added: "Classical sculpture has always imposed the sculptor's will on the stone, hammering and grinding it. My work uses the natural form of the stones, untouched.

"The relationship is less dominating, more responsive - a new movement in stone."

Examples of where the rocks came from: