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Coworker of mine has sent me this interesting photo set. As you see, I have attached three creative posters for the new Wrigley campaign. Wrigley's new product is called "Eclipse", for which creative director Cristian Schinadeerman used interesting illusionary approach. I believe the title that goes along with the campaign fits perfectly - "Powerful Fresh Breath". At first I was baffled whether I should categorize this under Billboards, but later decided to post the article as part of the Body Paint category. Body Paint category was updated long ago, but what you may have missed, is that our popular Billboards section is almost finished as well. You can take a sneak peek while your here. Everything is linked correctly, just some titles lack update. getting back to the topic, images below are very convincing and immediately reminded me of our Hand Painted Animals. More examples are available here and here. Some more details about the campaign - Agency: BBDO Chile, Illustrator: Estudios Garrigosa, Photographer: Estudios Garrigosa
  
My excuse to all of you once again for not posting updates yesterday and day before. It's been a rushy week I have to admit. The landlord kicked me and my girlfriend out of the apartment because of my inability to keep my mouth shut and just obey landlords crazy terms. What can I say, I have short fuse when someone interferes with my freedom and citizen rights. Despite it all turned well, we managed to move in a single day and found better apartment (we always dreamed of). Not to bore you with my private life, here are some recent site statistics for the Mighty Optical Illusions website.
Things have started to roll in a direction I wanted. Alexa has recently updated it's system which has boosted our site to 28,000 ranking. Our PR stands still at PR5, but is predicted to jump to PR7 in next Google update. Also the traffic has been steady with around 30,000 unique visitors daily and over 100,000 daily impressions. My biggest goal is to leverage the site of all the ads, and give you lighter design, better interface and faster loading times, but in order to do so we have to find Golden Sponsor or Site Specific Advertising representation company which can fill $10 CPM spots. I'm doing my best to close some contracts, but still no luck. It would be my dream to remove all of the ads from the site, and keep only one premium spot, but in order to so we'd have to sign contract with Federated Media, Glam or similar network that can compete with the current rates. Today's illusion is nothing special, yet very nice looking. Three posters you see below (2 are inside the article) are from Comedy Channel which used well known "Floating Letters" illusion, and tailored it to fit their advertising needs. I'm not sure if Comedy Channel is the same as Comedy Central TV Network. Any clue? Anyhow, their campaign is perfect example of clever advertising using optical illusions as a base - a perfect formula for huge customer response. This is something I always pushed advertisers to do for themselves, but sometimes its hard to get people just to sit and listen, even if its solely their profit. The biggest thing I've learned from this, is to never force making a favor for someone, that doesn't ask for it. It usually turns out people will be skeptic why are you helping them, and whats in it for you. Anyways, enjoy this post, new one is coming shortly!   
Hey everybody, look what I have just found. At first glance, this may look photoshopped, but it is actually a real sculpture! The author is Tsang Cheung Shing from Hong Kong. He created this installation for a pottery exhibition of “YingYeung” - a drink mixture of coffee and tea (very popular local drink in Hong Kong). The pottery, named Yuanyang II, is one of the collections of Hong Kong Museum of Art now displaying at the Central Concourse of Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA). Tsang Cheung-shing is a ceramic art tutor and product designer. Yuanyang II is modeled in a distinctive form with two figures indulged in kissing each other. Their heads support two elegant cups for drinking tea and coffee. The form and concept design fully complement the theme “Yuanyang" not only typical Hong Kong beverage of mixing tea and coffee which was already mentioned, but also a symbol of marriage and love. Hope you liked this post! Two more photos can be found inside the article.
  
 Stephanie Jones mailed me this awesome flick! Let's make her describe it herself: "Hi! I really enjoy your site, and when I came across this in my lecturer's blog, I thought I'd better send it in to you. It looks like another version of the Leprechauns illusion you have. One of the most popular puzzles ever created was the Get Off the Earth puzzle, invented by American's premier puzzlist, Sam Loyd, in 1898. Over ten million copies of the puzzle were produced.The puzzle shows a number of Chinese warriors around the rim of a circular piece of cardboard fastened at the center to a larger piece of cardboard so it can be turned. Part of each warrior is inside the circle and part is outside. When the disk is rotated from its initial position to its second position, one warrior disappears! The challenge is to explain how this "disappearing act" works. Well, there never were 13 Chinamen. There were many parts of Chinamen, arms, legs, bodies, heads, and swords. And each had tiny slivers missing. Then when the Earth was rotated, these pieces were slightly rearranged. In particular, each of the 12 Chinamen gained a sliver of a Chinaman from his neighbor. For example, at the lower left, there are two Chinamen next to each other. The top one is missing a foot. When the Earth is rotated, he gains a foot from his neighbor on the right. That neighbor gains two feet (he lost one) and one small piece of a leg, etc. This is a particularly good example of a vanishing puzzle. See The Extra Square, which is a vanishing puzzle in reverse. You can download the graphic below or the higher resolution file getoffearth.pdf Print on lightweight card stock. Cut out the second figure of the two figures. Place the disk so that the arrow points N.E. and count the warriors. Then turn the disk so that arrow points NW and count again. 
Patty Winsauer sent this magnificent photo along with following text: "Hi. This is a picture my aunt e-mailed to me. It is from the Best Photo Awards by National Geographic. It took me a while to see the zebras, cuz I thought the zebras were gray and their shadows were striped. I'm not completely sure it could be classified as an illusion, but it still looks kinda cool." I decided to post this photo cause it reminded me of our previously successful Camel Shadows illusion. Previous illusion also won National Geographic's Best Photo Award. This one is great, but little too similar (in my opinion) to win the same award again. What is your opinion? Does this count as an illusion?
Pixeloo is an artist who created these magnificent real-life photos of Homer Simpson, Super Mario and Jessica Rabbit. For his profession, he works daily with Photoshop. Cartoon characters are his favorite inspiration, so he decided to transform them a little, giving them realistic real-life form. In his mutant creations, Pixeloo used face parts of some well known actors, and implemented them magnificently. For example Homer's bald head is mostly constructed out of John Locke's ("Lost") famous "helmet". Jessica Rabbit is another well known character that starred in Roger Rabbit, and her face was mostly fused with a photo of Angelina Jolie. See which other celebrity parts you can recognize!
  
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!
  
Hey everyone. Here are two interesting paintings done by Mexican artist Octavio Ocampo. From his academic beginnings, Ocampo has evolved toward a style of his own, free of deep crises and governed by his naturally playful penchant for mysterious atmospheres and optical illusions. Therefore, he has worked as a scenographer and as a muralist, enthralled by the deceit, the visual game... taking part in many art shows around the world. We might describe any of the paintings of this master of illusion with the words: "Seeing is believing". Octavio Ocampo was born in Celaya, Guanajuato, Mexico on February 28, 1943. Soon, "Octavio Ocampo Museum" in his hometown will be open. Below, you can see two flower paintings, that can also be seen in a different way. Can you spot the multiple meaning effect?
 
 "The Contrast Asynchrony" optical illusion has been created by ShapiroLab enthusiasts. While the effect has been known for some time, variations of images, applications and games that give the best insight have been popping out regularly. This variation is surely my favorite. It is very easy to convince yourselves that the center disks are identical in shape and color - you can prove this by simply clicking on the "add/remove" button. The effect produced here is called "perceptual paradox". The disks appear to modulate out of phase and get light and dark at different moments. Experiment with the FLASH application below!I found this top quality Afterimage illusion and started to write an article about it. The image was titled "rick roll illusion", so I titled the article accordingly. The afterimage looked like the negative image of Bob Dylan, but Rick Roll is someone I never heard of. So I did a little research and was surprised by the results I received. Apparently, Rick-rolling is a prank and Internet meme involving the music video for the 1987 Rick Astley song "Never Gonna Give You Up" written and produced by Mike Stock, Matt Aitken, and Pete Waterman known as Stock Aitken Waterman.
The meme is a classic bait and switch: a person provides a link they claim is relevant to the topic at hand, but the link actually takes the user to the Astley video. The URL can be masked or obfuscated in some manner so that the user cannot determine the true source of the link without clicking (and thus satisfying their curiosity). A person who falls for the prank is said to be "rickrolled". The practice began as a variant of an earlier prank called duckrolling, in which a link to a popular celebrity or news item would instead lead to a photoshopped picture of a duck with wheels. Concerning the illusion, it works in the same way as Jesus Afterimage. You just have to stare at the little plus sign in the middle for about a minute, and then quickly look at the white surface. The effect will be stronger if you blink your eyes repeatedly. 
Got these 4 impossible objects recently, and since we haven't had any of these in recent past, I decided to share them with you. The "impossibleness" of these objects isn't the main reason I'm sharing them - the main reason is how beautiful they look, even though they aren't real life models (not that they can't be produced in real life). The fact they are CG doesn't make them less amazing. For those of you who don't understand the CG part, CG means Computer generated, or how some of you like to complain in comments section: "photoshopped". So, which one did you like the most? The last one kinda reminds me of our recently covered optical illusion game Echochrome. I liked the first one, but all of them are just amazing!
   
Floor tiles in this photo give an impression they are somehow three dimensional. I would have hard time living in a place where looking at those would be my every-day reality. But the real illusion is not the 3d effect the boxes produce, no - the floor sample is one of the most famous optical illusions of all time. Originally implemented at the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome, the pattern not only creates an illusion of three-dimensional boxes, but each person sees it differently.
For example: if we take lighter (white) side of the "box", we can understand it as upper facet of the box (or top cover). This way our floor tile sample gives an impression of some kind of pyramidal steps. If it were really 3d, you could step only on white surfaces (diamonds), while brown sides would be considered "legs" of the box. Think of it like this: white surfaces equal table tops, while brown surfaces equal legs of the table. But the floor tiles can also be interpreted differently: what if the white facet now considered supporting leg, and two brown sides represent the top cover of the box (like roof on the house). In this case, you'd only be able to step on the twisted brown roofs. Hope all this babbling made any sense. I have also included photos of the Basilica of St. John Lateran, where the floor sample originally originates from. Some say that the sample is implementation of Escher's work. I'm not quite sure of this.      
 Got this one long time ago, more precisely on February, 11th. It was submitted by Frank Berardi, J SGT MIL USA USACE. I'm not quite sure what SGT MIL and USACE mean, but probably it is something connected to military forces. If you have keen eye for details, and follow this blog regularly, you'll notice we already had submissions from SGT Berardi. Remember his Afghan Unit logo? Check it out! I apologize for not posting this earlier, since it's really funny-looking flick as well. Can you guess which horse is looking at you? The answer is trickier than you think! I'm still not quite sure. Frank's email was expectedly brief and detailed: "You may have seen this, but just in case - I think it is pretty cool." Hope you all like this one as well. I wish peaceful experience to Mr Berardi and his unit.Jim Gansle from Canyon Lake, Texas sent me this photo of a vintage car (along with few more visitors that submit illusions regularly). Seems that the photo really went viral, since lately I stumble upon it very often across the web. Enough on the background of this flick, now let me describe the effect. Once you see this photo, you'll probably need some time before you spot something very strange in it. I was wondering what is so interesting about this car, but after it hit me (no, not the car, luckily the car didn't hit me), it all became clear. This is what Jim wrote: "In case you haven't seen this before. I really enjoy your site - got the widget to tell me when a new one is available. What a fun you would have at intersections. You figure it out. I got a headache". This will be added to our Transportation category, the one I speak so rarely about.
There was no update yesterday, but I managed to improve "Body paint" category. You can see some new thumbnails added. It should be much easier to navigate through dozen of body art illusions now. Also, you can take a sneak peak at our Videos category that has been refurbished as well (still under construction). Those of you who are new here, you probably missed my previous announcement, where I explained how I'm planing to update all the categories with new, easy to navigate system. If you're asking yourselves where can you find all the "categories" I speak of, you should check those little blue links in the sidebar, right next to this text. In the mean-time friend of mine sent me this photo below. Immediately, it reminded me of well known vase illusion, that in the same time looks like some sort of vase, as well as two heads facing each other. So what do you first see? Silhouettes of standing men, or simply a wall made of columns? You tell me!
Hey everyone! Take a look a this funny poster ad for "Australia Post Office". The title that goes along with it says: "If you really want to touch someone, send them a letter". I think the line fits perfectly with the billboard. What I'm not exactly sure of, is whether to place this illusion inside Billboards category, or categorize it as "Body Paint" item. What is your opinion on this? I believe this photo wasn't Photoshopped, nor manipulated in any way. I think it's just a great example of realistic body paint. Reminded me a little of our Urban Camouflage article. Do you disagree? Was it manipulated or not?
Lucas Sayre submitted this amazing photo where you can see humanly shaped Statue of Liberty. Originaly titled "Human Statue of Liberty", this image was taken at Camp Dodge in Iowa and used eighteen thousand men. I collected bunch more and added them to the set. Luke also asked all of as a question. Here it is: "During the WWI years, Arthur S. Mole and John D. Thomas made some incredible human pictures by using thousands of sailors or soldiers in uniform to create images. After looking at the photo, which purports to involve over 18,000 soldiers, I can't tell if it's fake or real. If it is real, it seems to me that there would have to be more soldiers to make up the statute as it goes up and away from the perspective of the camera, in order to maintain the shape of the statue of liberty. Maybe your readers can decipher how it was done."
            
What's so special about Gillian Brown's photographs? Not much - you'd probably say at first. But wait! Don't conclude things only by looking at the first photo I gave you. Go inside the article and you'll see few more photos of the same set - only seen from different perspectives. This is amazing! Kinda looks like our recent Marvel optical illusion. The truth is that these aren't just paintings painted over real life photos. How did the author achieve this? The 3D effect these images accomplish works only from certain angle of view. If you remember our 2006 articles about Felice Varini (they can be found inside 3d chalk drawings category), you'll immediately recognize the technique and understand how they work. I love illusions of this type. Do you?
       
Before I explain today's optical illusion, I'd like to remind you of our previous similar illusions. This is because I find today's example better than all the rest of the same type. First time we covered "Relative Sizes" illusion of this sort (Perspective Illusion), was all the way back in April 2006. The illusion was titled "Monsters Illusion" and was animated picture. Following were more real-life looking (although all are photoshoped because of their nature) - check Relative Sized Nuns and Ebbinghaus illusion. You can probably find few more I missed inside the right category, like "3 Soldiers", "3 Little Piglets".
The effect: three terrain vehicles below appear different in size because of the surrounding environment. This is because of depth perception our brain automatically processes. Now take something to measure them, and you'll realize they are exactly the same. 
Jim Krug, one of our loyal RSS subscribers sent me this optical illusion painting. It resembles a lot to John Van Straalen's Purple Mountain Majesty. Do you agree? This is the newest addition to our Spot The Object category, which hasn't been redesigned yet, but you should check newly designed Anamorphosis category - it looks awesome now! Jim sent me another version of this image as well, with all the hidden animals outlined, but I haven't included it here. You know my style and perhaps think I'm evil, but this is only to give you more fun spotting hidden stuff yourselves. Here is what Jim wrote me: "Hi! Here is a recent painting of Mt. Rainier entitled "3 Eagles", It contains at least 6 other animals. I have some landscape oil paintings for sale. Please let me know if I can leave contact info for possible customers. Thanks" This is fine by me, so we are waiting for Jim to send in his details, and I'll publish them here. Update: "Jim Krug, j a krug studio, jakrugstudio@comcast.net - I paint in oil, mostly landscapes".
Optical Illusions in real life are great, specially if someone makes them interactive or even better - useful. Best example are those masked Cell-phone trees. Today's post is similar in its nature. Would you believe me if I told you that these awesomely painted blocks below, are in fact electric boxes? You heard me right - those ugly looking piles of metal and concrete. Well, looks like someone had enough of them, and decided to decorate them a little, presenting us with free public exhibition. The first one pictures birds on a balcony fence. For the most part birds look somewhat real, except the last one. The second box is painted in a style of a giant fish tank. The third is of a book shelve with shadows. It looks quite real from a distance. The last one pictures a cute little cat chasing a butterfly through a window.
I'm going to add this illusion to our newly designed "3D Chalk Drawings" category. As I promised I started re-designing all other categories as well. For now, you can check "Afterimages" section, since it has been updated and completed. Enjoy!        
Hellllooo there - Happy Easter to all of you around the world who celebrate it! I know Easter was yesterday, and my sloppiness isn't the reason for not giving my good wishes - the reason are my contradictorily standings on such topic, since I'm trying to keep this site universal for all religions, ethnicities, and sexual orientations. I'm not completely sure should I seasonally decorate the site with suiting Christmas, Easter, Halloween etc. motives. What is your opinion on this troubled topic (for me). Please guide me.
Anyways, probably not suitable with yesterday's Holly day, here are few more variations of "Perspective Skull" illusion. This wasn't intended as something rude, it just came to my mind after finishing the article, so nothing intentional or cynical about it. Trust me. Also, i understand this kind of illusions were already featured dozen of times, and probably amaze you less each time. Well I understand this, and it was the sole reason to include all other skull images that were left. No more - I hope... Few dozen more can be found if you use the search box, and type "skull illusion" in it.    
Hy there people, I have this collection of four "Spot the object" optical illusions, but I haven't got a clue about their artist. Anyone can help me with the background story for these paintings? Is it Bev Doolittle or someone else? Anyway, feel free to jump inside this article, and start the game. Your assignment is to spot as much hidden animals, object or faces as you can in shortest period of time. Which one is your favorite? I like the lion one the most, even though we had bunch of hidden lions in the past. Examples can be seen here, here and here. Oh yes, and on the Santana album cover as well!
   
Is it just me, or has the quality of optical illusions I post to this site, lately gone way up? Maybe it's only me bragging, but I like last few submissions very much. Anyway, I got my enthusiasm back, started making improvements to the category design, tightened my quality rules - resulting in improvements for you, our loyal fans. I also widened the width of the main page illusion images to match the width of the written text. Have you noticed this? Is it better this way? Would be thrilled if you appreciate all this, and shared your comments. Today's illusion is a photo of a tree submitted by user called Darryl. The illusion is more than obvious, but still nothing less than an awesome multiple meaning illusion in it's core.
This is what Darryl wrote: "Hi there, I've been using your iGoogle thingy for a good while now and some of the illusions on it have been amazing. Just like stumbleupon, I've often found myself on your site just endlessly clicking 'Next Random Illusion'. Its a lot of fun :D Anyway, I thought its time to submit an 'illusion'. I've had this one for a while and although it may not be much of an illusion i still think its pretty cool. I was in my back garden last summer and I noticed on the fence separating my garden from the neighbors there was a few knots in the wood which in my opinion looked like an animal anyone should recognize, the picture is attached to this email. I hope you enjoy it :D" 
Claude Oppikofer sent me this optical illusion few days ago. I believe her email explains it all - "Dear Vurdlak, I took a picture of this commercial poster yesterday. On the original poster it took me quite a while to see the illusion, whereas on the picture it seems very obvious. (But maybe this is only because now I know it!) Henniez is the most popular soda water in Switzerland and the text says: The water full of life. Best regards, Claude"
Let's see how many of you spot the illusion right away. It took me few seconds before I noticed it. Who will be the first to spot it? Additionally, I would like you to check our first optical illusion category in the sidebar, more precisely - "3D Sidewalk Chalk Drawings", see any changes? It took some time, but looks much nicer now. I started to rearrange (polish) all my categories. There will be additional small thumbnail for each illusion in their appropriate category. First category has been re-designed completely, and others will follow. Please share your opinion. I'm planning to refurbish all categories in the following weeks. Do you like these changes I did? Any suggestions? Thanks for your advice! 
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