Dragon Gardner: Optical Illusion with Your Own Hands

Optical illusions do not leave indifferent neither adults, nor children, immersed in the original world of magic and at the same time make the brain boil from the impossibility of what he saw.

Sometimes tricks are not so difficult to perceive. Among them, the so-called tracking dragon, which is made from paper according to a certain pattern, is extremely popular.

Illusion: Gardner's Dragon

This trick was invented by the famous juggler Jerry Andrus for Gardner donations, so it is often called in honor of the creator or owner of the fund. From the previous name of the illusion, it becomes clear what it is: a paper dragon always looks at the observer and even turns his head.

To achieve maximum effect, the figure needs to be placed above the light source, and during the movements it is recommended that the viewer close one eye and do not move more than 2 meters from the figure (the optimal distance is 1 m).

What will be required to repeat the illusion

In order to make a figure, you need a paper dragon Gardner, a template with the image of which is presented below.

Blanks come in three colors: green, blue and dark pink, and also contain a detailed instruction for assembling with bend indexes and a drawing explaining how the result should look (rear view).

In addition, you will need scissors, glue and photo paper, which has a more suitable texture for this purpose.

How is the Gardner's dragon made by yourself?

Next, you need to print the workpiece on a color printer, its size should roughly coincide with the A4 printing sheet. As it was said above, it is best to do this on photo paper, but if it does not exist, like the desire to spend money, then any one, preferably with a high density, will do.

After that, the workpiece must be carefully cut, while keeping the white box around the figure intact, in order to be able to read the instructions and see the assembly diagram. The template should be bent according to these instructions.

At this stage, the Gardner dragon is almost ready, it will be necessary to fix the base by pushing the plugs into the slots. In the sizing, only the head of the figure needs, while it is important to remember that the colored part of the workpiece must remain inside.

How it works

This illusion is based on some nuances of the human brain. A special coloring of the dragon's head makes it visually perceive it as a convex object, despite the fact that the paper is concave inside the color side. This is due to the fact that the brain tries to recognize the shape of the object on the basis of everyday experience, as well as its possible trajectory.

Therefore, when the observer moves, he gets the impression that the Gardner dragon turns his head slightly (this effect is possible only at a small distance). The location of the eyes in the figure, as it turned out, is also of great importance, because on some variations of the patterns created following the example of the illusion considered in this article, the look of the figure is slightly mowing.

Variations

Generally speaking, creating a paper illusion (the Gardner's dragon) will not take more than half an hour, but it is better not to trust this activity for children under 5 years old - they may not understand how to fold the workpiece and spoil it.

It is not necessary to stop at the dragon - there are about 10 templates with the image of other animals. Among them there is a dog, a cat, a frog and even a human skeleton, but not all of them are successful.

Therefore, having sufficient artistic skills, it is better to draw your own version, guided by the original Gardner template, in order to understand the principle by which the illusion works.

Similar optical tricks

Since the Gardner dragon is fully exposed and there is nothing to say about it, you can talk about other interesting illusions (some of them can also be repeated independently with the proper skills).

For example, an artist under the name brusspup animates monochrome images by overlaying a black lattice of parallel lines. Moving it, it gets a kind of animation. In addition, he also owns the idea of a floating cube.

This is a very simple trick, for which you only need a sheet of plain cardboard, some paper, scissors and scotch tape. The volume of the cube is achieved by the same principle that operates when assembling the head of the dragon Gardner - that is, the figure is obtained by concave the color side inward. Then the workpiece is glued to the cardboard with the help of a twisted sheet of paper, and due to rotational movements, it seems that the cube is hovering in the air.

In addition, brusspup draws extremely realistic images, distorted in such a way that it would seem to the viewer that it was a real thing in front of him, which can be picked up. However, when you rotate the object, the effect disappears.

There is a great number of optical illusions, and a considerable part of them plays on the color perception and sensation of volume, so the looking dragon is certainly not unique, but extremely popular due to the fact that anyone can do it with one's own hands. However, it is worth noting a very amusing fact - people who are schizophrenic are often unable to recognize such tricks.