Awesome Eyes

A big part of making a convincing animatronic is giving it eyes that move realistically. In this video, engineer Will Cogley explains how he’s refined a design for an electromechanical set of eyes that look creepy on their own but bring life to puppets. Documentation to make your own is available on Will’s website.

Paperweights serve one basic function, but these Eye Paperweights by New York artist John Derian do double duty by keeping an eye on you, too. Derian’s 3.5” round glass domes start with reproduced images from his extensive collection of vintage ephemera. Right/left eyes are then hand-cut and decoupaged onto glass.

This factory in Korea uses specialized machines to produce cosmetic contact lenses in mass quantities. All Process of World posted this footage from the DK Medivision factory to see how machines precisely apply designs to silicone hydrogel lenses, float them in hygienic solution, then deposit them into packages.

With a good macro lens, proper lighting, and a high-speed camera, it’s possible to capture some incredible images. This video of what it looks like when an eye drop hits the front of an eyeball reveals all sorts of neat details that you’d normally miss in the blink of an eye.

Spidermind Games developed an innovative production process to create some of the coolest-looking dice we’ve ever seen. Each one features a colorful marbled dragon’s eye agate stone encased a crystal-clear resin shell. Each set of nine dice includes a colored dragon egg for storage, along with a felt dice bag.

In the words of Hannibal Chew in Blade Runner “I just do eyes.” As creator of visual effect contact lenses for movies and TV, that’s exactly what Eyeworks for Film does too. Insider shows us how they handmake these wild prosthetic lenses to help actors dramatically transform their look.

There’s an oft-repeated story among school children that if you managed to keep your eyeballs open while sneezing, that they’d pop right out of their sockets. SciShow digs into this little gem to see if there’s any reason to actually be worried the next time you let out an atchoo.

Just when you think you’re so clever, here comes Helsinki-based talent Lucas Zanotto. In his latest playful and creative offering, he’s playing around with the idea of eyes. We wonder if we’d be as sharp if we had more coffee.

Super Deluxe introduces us to Eric Lindsey of Prosthetic Artists, Inc. to go inside the artistry of creating prosthetic eyes for people who have lost theirs. Each eye must not only be perfectly fitted, but must be precisely painted to match the patient’s natural eye characteristics.

While we’ve seen all eight of the optical illusions featured in SciShow’s video before, what makes this clip most interesting is the how much you’ll learn about human vision and perception.