Animating Optical Illusions

This is a post about an online lecture I watched by Chris Cray on animating optical illusions. Chris Cray is a CSM Character Animation graduate, and I came across this lecture from following After Hours Animation on instagram. In their own words they are a ‘space for the experimental and independent animation community’ and they run free online workshops and lectures.

In the lecture Chris talks about his motivation for animating optical illusions, and goes through the process of all four illusions he worked on. Although I’m not particularly drawn to the style of his work, I found the idea of animating optical illusions an interesting concept, and potentially something I would like to try.

I have in the past looked at other Escher illusions (aside from ‘Relativity’- the one of ascending and descending stairs). Sky and Water II is such an example. They are essentially as close you can get to an animation in a single still image, as one form morphs into another. I have taken inspiration from these to create my own illustrations (below). They do not strictly transform from one image into an entirely different one, such as in Escher’s drawings, but they have a similar aesthetic. I would like to develop these into animations, as although I am just experimenting with these methods for the first time, I think morphing and FX are one of my favourite areas of the subject.