By Vurdlak on July 15, 2009, with 35 Comments
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.
Copyright: G. Sarcone, www.archimedes-lab.org
(60 votes)By Vurdlak on July 12, 2009, with 109 Comments
Before we start with fresh content, I’d like to encourage you all to use “Facebook Connect” button more often (when posting your comments). Probably you’ve also noticed that our comments section now includes profile photos. The problem is that very few actually took the time to set their profile photo. By using Facebook commenting system, your photos are automatically shown. This reduces the number of boring anonymous comments, and increases uniqueness inside your comments. If you aren’t such a Facebook fan, you can still grab your own Gravatar, and set your unique picture. Check it out! I’m sure you’ll love it.
Concerning the illusions, I found this one through Google image search. I really liked it. Now, if I started talking too much about it, the answer would become more than obvious. I wouldn’t like to ruin this one for you, so I’ll let you solve this by yourselves. All I can say is that it has something to do with Relative Sizes. Shouldn’t be too complicated, though.
Are these cups different in size?
(26 votes)By Vurdlak on July 10, 2009, with 74 Comments
Alert! I’m slowly running out of quality optical illusions. There is “submit illusion” link at the footer of this site, but I think I’ll add another, more prominent button somewhere at the top. The problem with user submissions is that very often the photo submitted is too much blurry, illusion it holds is not so great, or it simply misses explanation. Hope this improves over time as you learn what kind of illusions pass my quality check. In short, our audience prefers optical illusions that are visually appealing, and contain quality optical illusion. Today I give you very simple, yet appealing example. Can you spot the optical illusion it holds only by yourself? As you see, this image is very simple, and the illusion it contains is somewhat “hard” to see at the beginning. Keep sending good stuff, and your submissions will appear momentarily!
Be carefull, there just might be more than one answer to this illusion!
(43 votes)By Vurdlak on July 8, 2009, with 68 Comments
I heard some advices how I should develop “Optical Illusion of The Day” app for iPhone/iPod Touch. Are you kidding me? We already did this :) It was our main news months ago. If you look a little bit closer (just below the header), you may even notice the “iphone app” link. Now that we concluded this little misunderstanding, let’s check today’s art installation:
This photograph came along with no accompanying description. I can’t tell you who the author is, nor when was this taken. But what I can tell you, is that the shown artwork greatly resembles Tim Noble and Sue Webster’s “Shadow Sculptures“. My next guess would be that the author behind them was Kumi Yamashita. If you have more info, be nice and share. Hope that this illusion wasn’t too scary – it’s just garbage on a stick, after all.
Two Heads are better than one, ayeh?
(39 votes)By Vurdlak on July 7, 2009, with 17 Comments
I’m glad that my writer’s block lasted this short, and hopefully I’ll be swinging back in full rhythm now. Am not sure if you noticed, but I’ve added “Top 10 Optical Illusions” section at the bottom of my sidebar. Based on your ratings, only the best optical illusions will automatically appear there. There are some rules though – optical illusion need to have at least 5 votes before they can candidate themselves. I hope that in time, all of the posts will get much more votes than needed. Hopefully as time goes by, we will have credible leaderboard of top optical illusions. I’m very excited about this new feature. What else do you suggest? I’m closely listening to your suggestions, and currently the best one I heard is advice to create some kind of a form, where you could submit your articles, images, etc… so they are completely ready, just waiting for me to approve them. Will keep you informed about this…
Today’s gallery is called “Anamorphosis“, and was created by Luc d’Hanis & Sofie Lachaert. This technique is very well understood by our old visitors, but if you’re a newbie you may want to check the Anamorposis category first. In today’s example when porcelain platters meet reflective object, the distorted drawings of precious birds on the platter become perfectly reflected on the bottles or cups. The awareness of the birds’ potential extinction emerges only when objects are carefully aligned as a pair. The distorted drawings on the platters only reveal themselves when you place a reflective object in the middle of the platter. Hope you’ll enjoy these “minimalistic” optical illusion photos. Oh, by the way – don’t forget to vote after you check our archived illusions. We need as many votes possible, to bring some credibility to out “top illusions” leaderboard.
The secret is revealed when you place a reflective object in the middle of the platter.
(43 votes)By Vurdlak on July 6, 2009, with 117 Comments
What each blogger experiences throughout his writing career, and what is currently happening to me is a lack of motivation and writer’s block. I’m kind of a webmaster that keeps his motivation by constantly “inventing” something, and having new ideas for this site. Don’t get me wrong – I’m perfectly aware this site is far from being perfect, but somehow I’m not particularly sure where to tunnel my motivation next. This is where you jump in: I would like as many of you possible, to suggest me what would you like to see more of on this website. Is it more optical illusions articles, new template functions, more videos? Featured games maybe? The idea I’m stuck with for some time now, is figuring how to find professional writers to help me write new articles. I’m capable of paying for each article, but I’m very picky about who I let access to this website. Is it so hard to find a person that does a good job writing stuff, had some experience with WordPress and would like to get payed for their work? Apparently it is. But let’s not change the subject. What I’m asking from you (apart from spotting the hunter’s prey in the optical illusion below), is to post your suggestions and ideas what would you like to see on this website, and keep moillusions.com as one of your favorite online destinations? Help me get some tasks, and I’ll be more than glad to brainstorm and figure out how to implement them.
Help the hunter find his prey...
(30 votes)By Vurdlak on July 4, 2009, with 36 Comments
Probably you grew bored from all those Ultimate Galleries I’ve posted during the past week, never the less – I’m sure you’ll love this one. At least if you have nerves going through each photo in this gallery. But before we continue, I’d like to show you an interview I did for Environmental Graffiti website. The interview can be found here. If you have a spare minute, I welcome you to read it and you are invited to post your comments here (you may even see a nasty photo of me). Now let’s explain what all those photos are doing here. If you visited any major Europe city over the past decade, I’m sure you’ve came across all those people who pretend to be a statues, standing on the street somewhere in downtown, during the summer. They are usually painted in gold, standing so still that you hardly can believe they aren’t statues at all. By freaking out the passers by, they earn some spare coins. English Russia reported that all those performers came to Russia recently, more precisely they visited city of Sochi to participate in the biggest Living Statues Contest, the world has ever seen. Now these bring our Body Paint category to the next level, don’t they? Which of these “living statues” you think did the best disguising job? Which one did you favor the most? Tell me, tell me!
It's pretty difficult to see these "statues" are real, live human beings
(21 votes)By Vurdlak on July 2, 2009, with 19 Comments
Ambiguous Violin Player
Japanese artist Shigeo Fukuda is the most prolific and versatile of all the illusion artists. Fukuda’s sculptures and installments were some of the most important additions to our optical illusions site. It is worth mentioning that his artistic opus is more than incredible, and that his works are displayed all over the world. Still, Shigeo is most known in Japan, where most of his work is on display.
He has created illusionistic art (two-dimensional and three-dimensional) in all manner of categories: impossible objects, ambiguous sculptures, distorted projections, anamorphic art, etc. Additionally, he is the author of three Japanese books on optical illusions.
(26 votes)
