Can't afford to pimp your car? Camouflage it

i-d10698c730816c1cd00065be544bf31e-_45729211_illusioncar466.jpg

Following up on my previous post about visual illusions, reader Jake alerted me to this story from the BBC:

A design student made a battered old Skoda "disappear" by painting it to merge with the surrounding car park. Sara Watson, who is studying drawing at the University of Central Lancashire (Uclan), took three weeks to transform the car's appearance.

Note that like a trompe l'oeil painting in a building, or an anamorphic projection, the perspective work on the car will only allow it to "blend in" seamlessly when seen from a specific vantage point - which might be why we only have one photo in the BBC article! It would be interesting to see the back of the car to discover if the artist tried to make the illusion work from other angles as well.

Update: nice - a gallery with more views of the car. Also the original BBC story now has a video!

More like this

The Ambassadors, 1533 Hans Holbein the Younger In the artistic technique called anamorphosis, an object is depicted in distorted perspective, so that the viewer has to take special action, like looking from a specific angle, to see the "correct" image. The most famous example of anamorphic…
As promised in the last catch-up post, a set of pictures less devoted to cute-kid shots. 213/366: Zone Defense The superhero-themed "zones" of our house, as defined by the Pip. The Pip has been making one of his preschool teachers draw superheroes for him. At some point, he cut these out with…
tags: Times Square, 42nd street, L>osing My Marbles, subway art, NYC through my eye, photography, NYC Losing my Marbles (2003). Artist: Lisa Dinhofer. Losing my Marbles, image 1, Detail 3. Glass mosaics on mezzanine walls of the 42nd Street (Times Square) for the A, C and E trains. This…
tags: Times Square, 42nd street, L>osing My Marbles, subway art, NYC through my eye, photography, NYC Losing my Marbles (2003). Artist: Lisa Dinhofer. Losing my Marbles, image 1, Detail 2. Glass mosaics on mezzanine walls of the 42nd Street (Times Square) for the A, C and E trains. This…

That's an idea I might have been too cynical to bother with, but the effect is actually intriguing. Especially where the shadow of the car doesn't disturb the illusion.

By Joe Leasure (not verified) on 03 May 2009 #permalink

That's very clever. I can see a few places where it doesn't look quite right to me, especially along the left edge of the car. But overall it blends very nicely.

Aren't you supposed to _not_ stop on the yellow criss-cross areas?!! Although I guess if no one sees you, you can get away with it....

Very nicely done! This young woman has an excellent eye for this sort of thing. I truly hope she gets top marks for this project!

By Marci Hilliker (not verified) on 04 May 2009 #permalink

Someone's going to come along and smash into that thing because they can't see it's there.