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MatejCadil β Escher Castle
#castle #escher #mcescher #impossibleobject #impossible #opart #opticalillusion #surreal #surrealism #waterfall
Published: 2018-02-20 11:09:16 +0000 UTC; Views: 4362; Favourites: 164; Downloads: 2
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Description
As the title suggests, this picture is inspired by the optical illusions and impossible objects created by MC Escher. I have already made several pictures inspired by Escher and I love playing with various principles of drawing, tricking the eye of the viewer and creating impossible objects. Other such pictures I have made are the City of Stairs and Romeo and Juliet . I did have great fun devising it, though it was certainly not easy to make it all properly fit together.Main inspiration for this picture comes from Escher's famous Waterfall . Or, in its most basic form, it is the Impossible triangle (or Penrose triangle)
But in this case I tried to make it slightly different by using a real perspective instead of isometric (or axonometric) view, which is most often used for such illusions, and higher field of view showing areas both below and above the horizon (so we see the lower part of the castle from above and the higher part from below). This was quite challenging, because the principle of the Penrose triangle doesn't really work around the horizon. You may notice that both in the lower and in the upper part of the picture there are numerous bridges between the towers, meeting and intersecting in some crazy ways, but there are not so many around the centre of the picture. That's just because the same principle wouldn't work there. But still I hope I managed to make it interesting.
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Comments: 39
Hi! I've arrived to this piece of architectural wonder via projectcomment.deviantart.com/ , and since obviously you've already received praise for the care & craft put into this, I'll try to focus on the thing I really apreciate here, how you've managed to make this original.
This not only includes all the possible homages to classical illusional figures and paradoxes, but also manages to twist some references, which I really appreciate. The warped archs/stairs connecting the central towers, for exaple really got me guessing what they actually where, just as the balcony-bridge on the second tower and hogarth's fisherman on the roof.
However, I believe clarity here came at the expense of keeping things undramatical (is that a word? oh well) with just volumetric shading and lots of blank windows to the right, and the axial building being, well, a regular one. That's why I think most of escher's buildings are assimetrical constructions.
I truly believe this is good as it is, but that Impact scale might benefit for a more...piranesian spirit, I guess? some intense shadowing can turn some key focal points even more ambiguous and hide some important "lackings". Anyways this is amazing, and you, my friend, deserve a watch. e.deviantart.net/emoticons/s/s⦠" width="15" height="15" alt="
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And thank you for the 
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Thank you very much for your insightful critique and your praise of my technique and the homages I included here.
I agree with your comment about the shading. I hesitated how much shading and contrast I should include and certainly bolder contrast would make it stand out more, but I liked the simplicity and clarity of the lines (I even liked it without any hatching, but that was just too incomprehensible) and I was a bit afraid that I would have to add more and more shading and perhaps ruin the picture or lose the sense of ambiguous impossibility allowed by simple linework.
Anyway, thank you for taking the time to write the critique!
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Hello. I have come from a.deviantart.net/avatars/p/r/p⦠" alt=" " title="ProjectComment" />, and when I saw this in the gallery folder, I knew I had to comment on it.
I am amazed by how great this looks. The lines are perfectly straight, and give the piece the same feel as the illustrations in older books, (including, considering the Escher theme, books on geometry and optical illusions) and the line art is great, with you knowing how to use as few quick lines as possible to give the illusion of depth efficiently, without messing up the style or forms. I am sure that you must have been meticulous in your attention to detail, and therefore the viewer should will have to look long and hard to fully appreciate this. Considering that themost worthy comparisons to Escher are the result of the geometrically impossible figures, such as the storeys and buttresses, and the cube hanging from the hook up top, your patience, in order to ensure that the lines are perfectly straight and proportionate, is incredible. The slightest error would have ruined the effect, but I cannot really perceive anything wrong with this. You must understand geometry a lot, as you were able to draw the contradictory planes and contours without getting confused and disoriented. Just for the meticulousness alone, I have to rate this as one of the best artworks Iβve ever seen on this website.
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Thank you so much for your kind words!
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I would love to see someone try to produce a 3-Dimensional rendition of this, just to see how it would play out as a potential in-game level. I love the inspiration for this and the work and effort you put into this. I don't think I'd be able to do something like this. If you look closely, you can see this: /\/\/
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Such a fantastical tower you've designed. I wounder how the people constructing and residing within this structure must feel about the optical illusions thrown all over the place. Just one flaw: Where the heck are the two other walls!?
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Thanks a lot for the critique!
I am aware that the two other walls are missing, but I think it is necessary to maintain the illusion with the bridges. This just can't really be realistic.
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Understandable, but still it might actually add to the optical illusion and impossible construction. Though I am fine with this.
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What a nice and well executed tribute to one of the greatest graphic artist of the 20th century!
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DΓky, jsem rΓ‘d, ΕΎe se lΓbΓ.
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This is absolutely amazing! As someone who likes creating mathematical art, I really appreciate the effort and vision put into this piece.
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Thank you, I really enjoyed drawing this, though it took a lot of time.
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What an amazing tribute to my all time favorite artist ever!Β You did it right; it looks real until you start following paths
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Thank you so much, I am glad you like it!
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This is one of the best executed tributes to Escher's ideas I've seen.
It has just the right amount of detail to sell the illustration and right amount of complexity to fascinate with the impossible.
As critique, the lower stories (pillars) could have been just a little taller so that the little people could not 'reach out with their hands and touch the impossible'. I think part of the impossible constructions fun is the mental journey on the path, like the ant on the mobius strip, if you follow what I mean. (if they can touch the impossible, they don't need to make the journey.)
well done!
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Thank you for your comment and thoughtful critique.
I agree with you, perhaps the problem is that I wanted to put too many parts and objects in a limited space, so they are often too close together β more space could certainly benefit them.
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Such a clean and intricately drawn piece. I personally love architectural art (though I'm very bad at executing them) and while I have been too familiar with the optical illusion tricks, I find your work very refreshing because it really TRICKED me at first, thinking "Oh this is such a nice, symmetrical structure" but as I looked closer I started to see that it isn't a normal castleΒ Β It's very nice how you have created a bit of varieties for different parts of the castles but still made it look so well-balanced. I also love the fact that you've added people doing various jobs inside and outside the castle, it gives a sense of the normal everyday life which contradicts the surreal quality of the structure, and I guess it would have been boring without the interaction of tiny humans so good job!!!!
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Thanks a lot for your comment! I am very glad to hear that it really tricked you.
I really enjoyed devising both the impossible outline of the structure and various details, including the people (for a time I hesitated whether to include them, but I am glad that I did so).
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Amazing! This must have taken a lot of planning.
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It certainly did, but it was very interesting to work on it!
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Wow!!!Β
The abstractness of the castle itself, and all the detail looks really cool, and seems to show you more the more you look at the picture!!
Great job 
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Thanks a lot, that's just the impression I wanted to create, to invite viewer to look on it for a longer time.
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I can tell that this took you hours to complete. I love the attention to detail and how it incorporates 3D. This is a great piece of art.
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Thank you! Yes, it took me quite a lot of time, but it was quite interesting to work on.
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It is so clean and intricate, one could confuse it with a real project until they found out the arches don't really connect to the "right columns". You did an awesome job here, the image is very well centered and the elements are all well balanced. Even being a mostly-lineart work, the simple shading and the addition of the details on the roofs, towers, ladders and stairs made the whole piece gain quite a depth. I just love how this is so straight-lined and at the same time completely surreal. Definitely caught my eye. Congratulations!!
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Thanks a lot for your comment! I had a lot of fun devising it, though of course it had to be well planned. π
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I don't doubt it, looks like it's harder to make a nonsense design than a perfectly square one, and you do it greatly!!
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This is messing with my head I love it XD
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Such a tremendous amount of careful, intricate labor, you've put so much time into this. It's very striking.
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Thanks for your comment! Yes, it took me very long to finish, though I was enjoying the process.
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