Illusive Op Art Skulls

I am currently working on new “neon color spreading” effects. Have a look at the pictures below… Though you perceive fluorescent grinning skulls, the vertical white stripes don’t contain any color at all, they are uniformly white! The trick lies on the fact that some black lines have very thin color edges. This illusory shading effect is also known as “subjective transparency” or “Tron effect”.

The neon color effect was first observed by D. Varin in 1971. The human ability to perceive a neon effect may be a remnant of the development of our power of sight under water at extreme depths, where light is very poor.

My Op Art Skulls are available as prints and t-shirts from my online store.

Animated samples of my “Illusive Op Art Skulls”; work in progress…

A simple animation involving only six frames.

An animation with stroboscopic and afterimage effects (a light Troxler effect can also be perceived). If you look steadily at the gif for a while, the skull may become reddish.

Chromatic skull stroboscopic

My Op Art Skulls are available as prints and t-shirts from my online store.