Mighty Optical Illusions » Escher Style

Volkswagen’s Escher-style Billboards

Vurdlak — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 18:45:12 +0000

Probably inspired by Henry Lim’s LEGO installation, Eric submitted these fun-lookingVolkswagen billboards. By now, you are all aware that these ads were based on M.C. Escher’s “Relativity“, “Waterfall” and “House of Stairs“. In the gallery below, I included all of the three original posters done by Volkswagen for their “4Motion” van. I think their pitch-line “Get to the jobs others can’t!” suits this Escher campaign perfectly! Have you seen any of these out in the wild?

Advertisement for Volkswagen 4Motion, based on Escher's artwork "Relativity"

Check out complete set below:

Henry Lim’s LEGO Escher

Vurdlak — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 15:27:05 +0000

While its not possible to actually build an impossible structure with LEGOs, it might be possible to create a structure that (when viewed from the appropriate angle) would recreate the illusion. We already proved this many times, but if you are new to this site – be sure to check LEGO tag. You’ll quickly realize Henry Lim wasn’t the first individual with an idea to reproduce M.C. Escher’s works in LEGO, but can his results be among the best? This is where you come in to share your views. In September 2005, Henry was commissioned by the Hong Kong Science Museum to sculpturally recreate a series of Maurits Cornelis Escher lithographs. It was important that there should be no photographic manipulation involved – the impossible objects should be approximated via optical illusions. It took Henry about a month to build (and rebuild with glue) all four sculptures.

Henry Lim created this LEGO replica of Relativty by M.C. Escher

Check out more LEGO impossible structures here:

Two Animated Optical Illusions

Vurdlak — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 16:30:10 +0000

Hmm, something seems wrong here...

Two days ago, me and my better half returned from vacation. I thought I would immediately start on the site. Post new illusions, add new functionality, etc… I forgot one little detail: Each year I return home, somewhere near the end of August, Ragweed (ambrosia ?) season starts. This little plant is a real pest! Did you know that a single flower produces over 1 billion pollen (which fly few miles from center), and that more than 10% of human population have allergies caused by it? Same goes for me – I can hardly open my eyes and breathe. What I hate the most is that this plant came to Europe in 19th Century from USA, and by now there is more of it here than back in the States where it originated from. You can see the epicenter chart here, if you live somewhere in Europe and if it interests you.

So now, after I shared my “life story” with you (which I realize many of you dislike), I’m ready to share some new stuff. These two animated pictures you see on your left, and below this article aren’t really spectacular. Still, they make really nice optical illusions. In my opinion, the snake one will take few moments of your time before you notice the illusion, while the constructor below was probably contracted by M.C. Escher to bring his architect drawings to reality. There was a “Rope Optical Illusion“, I posted last year which greatly resembles the Snake one. Be sure to check it out as well (if you missed it)!

Update: “The Snake Illusion” was originally created by Vlad Alexeev.

Escher thought he would have trouble finding a constructor for his architectures. Not with this guy!

Dancing Soldiers Optical Illusion

Vurdlak — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 13:02:53 +0000

Just so that you know why there was a 2 day delay between illusions, the reason was my trip for vacation. By now I have accommodated myself at the island of Korcula, which will be my new blogging station for the next month or so. It took some time before I could set up the office and internet connection here, but now all should be set now, and I’m ready to continue updating Moillusions.com from now on.

I’m glad that many of you switched to Facebook Connect, or created Gravatars for commenting on this site. Comments section looks much more “friendly” now, with all those user pictures posted next to their comment body. There was an issue with icons not appearing, but Facebook has fixed the bug, and all should be running perfectly now. Before I log out, I’m obligated to mention the illusion. As you see something is terribly wrong with our little soldiers. If you have problem understanding what is going on around, check original Elephant Illusion (famous one), and drop an eye on M.C. Escher Cowboys.

Sandro Del Prete’s Optical Illusion Art

Vurdlak — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:49:21 +0000

We’ve been posting Sandro Del Prete’s optical illusion artworks for as long as I can remember. Unfortunately he was never properly credited for those mega popular illusions he created. When I learned that he was the artist behind all those pieces of art, I’ve browsed through every each of his illusions from the past and tagged them with “Sandro Del Prete” tag. You may check all his previous works by clicking this tag. Today I bring you one of his awesome impossible paintings, not so many people even heard of. I have included the gallery beneath this image, and added as much new illusions from Sandro I could find. Many of them were covered before, but many new ones were added additionally. Few days ago you asked why is there a need for gallery, when it would be easier for you to see all photos that are part of the set just in one page. I’m aware of this, but as I always been transparent to you guys, the reasons follow – First thing that gallery enables is faster page loading. By having only one image on each page with additional set thumbnails, makes it much smaller in size, thus faster to load. Second, and more important reason (for me as webmaster), is that by opening each new image in a separate page, adds another impression to this website. By this I mean loading new ads each time the new illusion is opened. This shouldn’t effect you, but enables me to provide our sponsors with more impressions. Hope this answers your question, and explains role of our newly added galleries. Now little bit of Sandro’s biography.

Sandro Del-Prete was born in 1937, and is a Swiss artist who paints figures, situations and processes that cannot exist in the real world. Comparisons can be drawn between Del-Prete and Escher’s artwork, although they differ in subject matter, style, mood and technique. Del-Prete greatly admires Escher and believes that they are ‘kindred spirits’, however the viewer will find very little mathematical precision in Del-Prete’s work, something that is always present in Escher’s work.

Sandro Del Prete - Crusader Illusion

Check out the previous work of Sandro Del Prete

“Create The Impossible” by LEGO

Vurdlak — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 16:11:00 +0000

It seems LEGO finally recognized impossible object illusions as another great (optical illusion) way to promote their product. I’d like to think their inspiration came of this website – specially Escher Style category, but it’s much more likely they stumbled upon some of Andrew Lipson’s work, instead. I liked LEGO very much back being a kid, and have spent hours creating all sorts of incredible structures. I’m sorry it never occurred to me how fun would it be creating something like this. If you like these impossible creations, you’ll surely enjoy Lego Venice and these. Have to go now. Cya tomorrow!

Josh Sommers’ “Escheresques” – Part II

Vurdlak — Sat, 31 May 2008 06:09:00 +0000

Remember Josh Sommers? He was the artist that created all the impossible CG object (Part I and Part II), and those marvelous Escheresques (Part I). The name for this article is Escheresques as well (Part II). The name stands as a tribute to optical illusion master M.C. Escher. These images were all done with help of some 3D photo editing program, which is irrelevant, since the outcome is to be observed as a computer art. Which of these images you like the most? Have you connected each one with its original Escher pair? If you don’t recognize all of them, I suggest visiting “Inspired by Escher” optical illusion category, where you have a good chance of learning which images were inspirational for Josh.

Josh Sommers’ “Escheresques”

Vurdlak — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 17:10:00 +0000

Hey everybody! I found an interesting artist on flickr, and have to admit am really amazed by all of his artwork. Most of the photos he shares are edited in photoshop, but the illusion they produce is usually independent from the digital manipulation. It amazed me when I found out he is the author of our previously posted CG Manipulated impossible structures. Josh Sommers is an amateur photographer, and is happy to share and teach others the techniques he uses. If you are interested in how to do something, feel free to send him a message through flickr. His Equirectangular panoramas, little planets and stereographic projections are all created using Canon Digital Rebel XTi, Canon 10-22mm lens, a Nodal Ninja 3 Tripod head, Hugin, Photoshop and Flexify. He is a Photoshop user since 1993. Below are 3 of his photos that took my attention. If they remind you of Escher, its not coincidence!

M.C.Escher’s Curl-Up Animal Constructed!

Vurdlak — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 22:17:00 +0000

M.C. Escher’s “Curl-up” is one of his imaginative fantastic creatures. The note surrounding it gives strong support to the potential value of the curl-ups as a concept for an exploratory probe or perhaps a new generation of sophisticated off road vehicle. His “curl-up” creature came into existence because of the absence, of wheel shaped, living creatures with the ability to roll themselves forward Biological details are still few: is it a mammal, a reptile, or an insect? It has a long, drawn-out, horned, sectioned body and three sets of legs; the ends of which look like the human foot. In the middle of the fat, round head, that is provided with a strong, bent parrots beak, they have bulb-shaped eyes, which, placed on posts, protrude far out from both sides of the head.

In the stretched out position, the animal can slow and cautiously, with the use of his six legs, move forward over a variety of terrains (it can potentially climb or descend steep stairs, plow through bushes, or scramble over boulders). However, when it must cover a great distance, and has a relatively flat path to his disposal, he pushes his head to the ground and rolls himself up with lightning speed, at which time he pushes himself off with his legs- for as much as they can still touch the ground. In the rolled up state it exhibits the form of a discus, of which the eye posts are the central axle. By pushing off alternately with one of his three pairs of legs, he can achieve great speeds. It is also sometimes desirable during the rolling to hold up the legs and ‘freewheel’ forward. “Curl-Ups” is what is used in translation, but you may notice that Escher came up with a Latin title “Pedalternorotandomovens Centroculatus Articulosus.” Here below we may see a real life model constructed by an artist Hawken King, a British designer living in Tokyo, who specializes in new-media illustration.

Corner House Illusion

Vurdlak — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 18:16:00 +0000

I believe we’ve seen similar optical illusions on this site before. However it is really awesome, if you know how to look at it! Here is what I want you to do. First cover the upper half of the picture with your palm, and you’ll automatically assume that the window corner of this building is convex (bulged out). Now try covering the lower half of the photo, and you will see the inner corner of the building (concave this time). Amazing isn’t it? Using this method you get much better experience than simply by looking at it. Some of the guys I presented this image with, couldn’t spot anything wrong before I explained them to cover half of it using their palms. I just noticed Colin made another guest post, so I’m approving it next. Enjoy! For our new visitors, please check the optical illusion widgets. You’ll be amazed what you can find there, and download it freely ;)