Depending on the point of view, both ends coincide and make it look like a closed figure. The interposition, orientation and perspective create a contradiction of the space that makes us perceive something that is not. This way, the vase becomes more than just a functional object, turning into a decorative piece that plays with perception. You can place it anywhere inside your home, as its clean, simple shape can pleasantly interfere with both a modern and traditional decor. Just put some water inside the crazy triangle vase and watch how the flower blooms in the company of an awesome optical illusion!

Onto the illusion now! The strange Atomium-like impossible object below was created by Pawel Hynek in 2006. I bet you would have hard time constructing something similar on your own! After a while you get used to the idea this thing can’t exist on it’s own, and how it was probably brought to life in digital environment. Never the less, I admire the hyper-realistic result Pawel achieved. Does it remind you of a famous Brussels Atomium monument (this one)? BTW: The Atomium monument was originally built for Expo ’58 (1958 Brussels World’s Fair). Designed by André Waterkeyn, the monument consists of nine steel spheres connected so that the whole forms the shape of a unit cell of an iron crystal magnified 165 billion times!! The sculpture stands 102 meters (335 ft) tall.

But what I also think, is that it couldn’t hurt encouraging your little toddlers to try and construct something similar on their own! Not only will you motivate them to “mathematically” analyze the 3D space, they will also learn the beauty behind optical illusions, and educate themselves while doing it! When Escher chose to construct this deception, he placed the staircase on the roof of a building and structured the building to convey an impression of conformity to strong (but inconsistent) vanishing points. He has the right vanishing point higher than the left one.

Anyhow, I prepared two entertaining optical illusion constructions for you today. It’s nothing we haven’t seen already, but I believe how the beauty of both paintings makes them worthy showcasing here. Can you see the illusion yourselves? Can you see where one column starts and the other ends? I always liked this sort of illusions, no matter if it involved elephant legs, soldiers or pencils… Hope you will enjoy these as much as I have!

I’ve never been very good at wooden block architecture, so I never really made anything all that impressive with the toys when I was younger. They do seem like a good, albeit underutilized, medium for art projects. Have any of you ever made cool stuff with wooden blocks?

As for this first top ten list, I thought tattoos would make a great topic -after all, you have to really love an illusion to get one tattooed on you. This first tattoo is my personal favorite because it’s such a classic illusion subject -multiple meaning one. These work really well as arm  tattoos because you never know if someone will view it while your arm is raised or not, making it the ideal location for such a piece. This specific design was done by David Page. On the left, you have a queen, but when you flip her upside down, you have a king.

Next, the skull illusion tattoo involves one of my favorite types of illusions. What’s so great about skull illusions?  Let’s face it, they’re just so cool! It’s also a great idea for a tattoo since skulls are one of the most classic tattoo designs, but this interpretation brings the concept from cliche to chic.

Here’s another excellent skull illusion tattoo, this one involving two clowns holding hands while drinking. The tattoo, by Kate Hoogland, just might contain the most romantic skull illusion I have ever seen.

On the right, we have a brilliant rendition of M.C. Escher’s Drawing Hands illusion. The piece, done by Cheryl Volling, has some absolutely stunning shading, giving it the life-like appearance of the original Escher drawing.

This ambigram tattoo is great in that it incorporates some of the most important aspects of philosophy into an ambigram. It’s also particularly nice in that it is easy to read and doesn’t look strange from either direction, which is one of the hardest aspects in making an ambigram.

This saint/sinner ambigram is also easy to read, but rather than focusing on the arts and sciences, it focuses on religion. I think it really seems to denote the true duality of man.

Here’s another cool religious optical illusion, albeit in a a totally different style. If you don’t see the illusion, just back up a few more inches and then you’ll see that the image comes together to make the face and beard of Jesus.

On the right is another Escher tattoo, this one is on Flickr user’s alan.maia profile and features fish transforming into birds (and vice-versa) artwork. Maybe it’s just me, but I really love how worried that last fish in the tattoo looks.

We’ve featured a few of Del-Prete’s illusions before, but this impossible object tattooed on Flickr user bonstance and seen in the book Masters of Deception is still new.

Here’s a great tattoo with a double meaning. Is it a face or a cartoonish man playing saxophone?

Bonus: While it’s little anamorphic, this one might not technically be an illusion. Even so, the details are amazing enough to make it looks completely realistic.

Now, before I sign off, I thought I’d ask you guys about your own tattoos. After all, if you’re a regular reader of Moillusions.com, you just might be the type of person who’s willing to get an illusion tattoo. So, do any of you have illusion tattoos? And if you do, do you have any links to the pictures online? I know I’m not the only one who’d love to see them.

Also, I’m a big fan of giving credit where it’s due, so if you know who did any of the tattoos that aren’t labeled, please leave their names in the comments. Thanks guys!

Anyway, we’ve seen this same Escher work in LEGO before, but there’s just something about the delicate nature of paper that makes the interpretation of the same original Escher work appear so much more fragile and delicate than the toy brick version. In a way, it’s kind of like hearing a song covered by two different bands who specialize in two different genres. You can recognize that they started out with the same influence, but the end result is drastically different.

While I was disappointed to not get to live out this fun memory from my youth, I was at least able to find a website that shared a variety of pictures and information from the attraction. So at least this way I still get to share the cool illusions that once stood at the park with all of you.

The Mystery Shack was built on a hill, which would mess with your perspective just enough to create a variety of cool illusions. The first trick involved forced perspective that made two people appear to change heights right in front of a whole audience. Next, your guide would take you inside where you would see a chair that stood perched on the wall without nails or magnets.

Near the end of the shack was a water trough that would seemingly send the water uphill.

By the end of the tour, you’d feel like you didn’t know which way was up and how to walk straight. It was a great illusion. While I couldn’t visit the shack, I’m still happy to get to share its memory with all of you. Hope you enjoyed our tour.

Sorry for such a long intro, just wanted to inform you I’m back now (and how last few posts were set to automatically appear each day, and were written few days ago ;). It’s also why it took so much time to get your comments approved. Now that I have charged my batteries once again, let me roll up my sleeves and continue sharing some good stuff! For today I bring you two posters that feature Missing Pieces illusion we featured some time ago. Seems that Chupa-Chups company jumped the optical illusion billboard wagon as well!

The artist(s) behind these models isn’t known to me, yet the work he did greatly reminds me of Josh Sommers’ CG illusions posted in 2008. Even when being aware these illusion were artificially generated, the question still remains – how was this achieved? How would the object appear if we rotated the model, and show it from different angle? Would these appear the same if they were done in real life? Please share your opinion!