Draw your own 'floating cube' optical illusion: an arty party trick and fun creative exercise

Looking at other people's optical illusions is fascinating, no doubt, but have you considered making your own? I've discovered a fantastic video that shows you how to play with angles by sketching your own 3D cube that looks like it's levitating above the paper.

This is a neat arty party trick, but also a great way of exercising your art muscles by playing with perspective, line and shading. All you need is one of the best pencils, paper, ruler, scissors and a keen eye. Though this isn't a trick that will work very well on a drawing tablet (due to the need to cut out the top of the cube), it's still a worthwhile exercise for digital artists to inspire further work on the skills mentioned above.

Floating Cube illusion Drawing | Anamorphic illusion - YouTube

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To help with the perspective and making sure angles are spot on (precision is key for this to work), it's important for the piece of paper to be lined. This means your cube can line up perfectly with the paper, and it also provides spatial context to the viewer, which helps the illusion work so impressively. The shadow adds to the authenticity of the illusion, as does the shading.

This is an anamorphic illusion, which means you have to view the effect from a specific viewpoint for it to be successful. As you can see from the video, in this case you need to look at it from the bottom of the page for the floating effect to take hold. If you look at the page from above then the illusion immediately becomes flat, and all the magic is lost.

Of course, the part of the video that shows the pencil moving underneath the cube is down to clever editing (no-one's drawing skills are that good!) but the effect is convincing nonetheless. If you have the video editing skills, you could make your own video doing the same thing with masking.

Comments on the YouTube video are suitably impressed, with users noting the "impressive" use of perspective and calling the illusion "magic". "Wow, your sketching technique is amazing! I love how smooth the shading is," said one user.

Check out Ezdrawin's YouTube channel for more drawing tips, tricks, hacks and tutorials, including loads more optical illusions.