The other day I was helping a couple people play some game thing on deathball.net, and there was some level thing that featured 2 images representing 3D, and it had this little paper dragon thing in it...

It had the url to a video zipped up as some kind of hint. Well, needless to say the few of us were very confused and amazed by this video. You see the dragon appears to be looking at the camera, and regardless of where it moves, this paper dragon always appears to turn it's head twards the camera.

After watching the video several times, I tried to searh for the text written on it of "Gathering For Gardner"... Though after a few searches I didn't find anything relating to this weird dragon. So I finally did a search for "Dragon Illusion" and found it! It seems this little dragon thing is on Grand Illusions, and is downloadable...

It turns out the thing works by having an inside out head. Basically the brain (espeically in 2D, ie: one eye or on video), believes it's shapped differently than it really is (like it's rightside out). Because of this, the brain is tricked when you move to think the head is actually following you. However if you know how it's shaped when you watch it, you can easily see whats really happening...

What I've found is that after making a couple, I had a hard time "seeing" the head move... But I found lighting is key... I placed one of them in my house and by mere coincidence I found it was probably the perfect place for the effect. As when my lights in the room are on, I can actually view the moving head with both eyes uncovered...

As of now I've made 2 other colors out of the provided template. Basically I photoshoped it... I also have fully cleaned up the images, removing the little white lines & arrows and stuff used to help explain how to assemble it... Once you put 2 of them together, you really don't need thoes lines anymore... I also found it's easier to reference the template on the computer than try to decode the cut up paper...

I'm hoping to make my own type thing using this effect... I dunno if I will get anywhere, not being an artist and all... But I will see...

I found a commercial version of this too, called "Eye Foolery"...

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