If you love photography and and optical illusions, Spanish photographer Chema Madoz has a perfect mix for you! His unmistakable style is not burdened with unnecessary cluster and details, always in black and white and with a witty catch in every picture.

The work of Singapore-based artist Keng Lye could easily pass for some nice photos of sea life – except that they’re not photos, but three dimensional photorealistic paintings! Keng achieves the 3d effect similarly to 3d printer – he pours a layer of resin into a bowl and paints it with acrylics, layer by layer revealing more and more of each creature. His painting technique is almost the same as Riusuke Fukahori’s, but Keng found a new twist to it – he made his creations protrude from the surface.

You may think you’re looking at a bizarre painting, but look closer, and you’ll realize that it’s actually an anamorphic 3D sculpture. The massive portrait of Malian actor Sotigui Kouyaté is the latest work of French artist Bernard Pras. It was created entirely out of recycled materials such as clothes and rags, wood, glass lanterns, dishes, rubber and other trash Bernard would gather from the installation site.

London-based artist Jonty Hurwitz creates amazing anamorphic sculptures that can only be seen in their own reflections. In fact, without the mirror cylinder, most of his pieces would look like rubbish. To create these sculptures, Jonty first scans a three-dimensional object, then uses computational software to come up with new physical forms.

After seeing lots of anamorphic illusions you get really bored about this whole thing. Yesterday, however, a friend of mine showed me a video titled “Amazing Anamorphic Illusions” that just blew my mind. A master of such illusions, going by the Brusspup nickname, posted this video just two days ago and it already has more than 2 millions views.

Some find them frustrating, while others just can’t get enough – optical illusions is something that will always leave you perplexed and questioning your eyesight. Our minds are trying to find the easiest way to look at things. At a first glance, we try to relate the image with the most basic and close interpretation of it, and only after a few seconds do we realize that separate details of the image don’t even make sense. Check out the selection of our favorite photographic illusions and see for yourself!

Even though Ramon Bruin has a degree in airbrushing, it’s his other skill that made our jaws drop. A Netherlands-based artist shows demonstrates how well he’s mastered the art of 3D illusions, all drawn by pencil. As he puts it, trying photo-realism was just another way for him to push his boundaries and add another technique to his portfolio.

Bodypaint has become very popular in the media, but the works of Trina Merry from San Francisco and Emma Hack from Adelaide (Australia) has raised the bar even higher. By combining their amazing body painting skills and the athleticism of their models, the two artists managed to transform groups of people into a wrecked car and three different types of motorcycles.

Don’t be deceived, this is not another collection of Guido Daniele’ work. The hand paintings below are all painted by a talented London-based body painter Annie Ralli. Photographed by Ray Massey, these optical illusions are a part of advertising campaign for Ecclesiastical Insurance, a niche insurance company using the byline “You’re in good hands”.

Photographer and tourist Michael Hughes creates cool optical illusions by placing cheap souvenirs in front of famous landmarks. Michael has discovered the technique back in 1998 when he held up a postcard he bought for his daughter on the tourist platform at the Lorelei cliffs next to the river Rhine. Interestingly, he has recently started taking trips just to photograph a souvenir in front of its landmark.

Do you remember the amazing 3D Pencil Drawings by 17 Year Old Fredo we’ve shown you last year? Well, don’t be deceived, this is not another collection of his work. The sketches below are all drawn by the 21-year-old Nagai Hideyuki from Japan. Inspired by British 3D street artist Julian Beever, Hide uses the same projection technique called anamorphosis which allows to create 3D illusion when viewed from the correct angle.

Swiss artist Felice Varini has been creating illusions of flat graphics superimposed on three dimensional spaces since 1979 using the same eye-deceiving technique called anamorphosis. The complete shapes can only be seen when viewed at certain angles, otherwise the viewer will only see some random broken pieces.