Thread: How do I make "eyes follow you" props?

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I have checked this site and I can't find anything that really tells me how to build props with eyes that follow you.

Does anyone know how to make that illusion?

Are we talking about a portrait? Statue?

There are the busts in the Haunted Mansion that seem to turn to follow you...

The Haunted Mansion - Secrets (about 1/3 down the page)

Mainly portraits but it would be nice to know how to do skull heads and such, too.

The low tech way is to use lenticular portraits, but this is not something that is practical as a home made project.

The high tech way is it..... hm...... actually there isn't one, Ive had some ideas on this front but nothing that has encouraged me to pursue it

you could of course have a person behind the portrait controlling the eyes, however, this doesnt really sound like a very efficient use of manpower

I think I saw someone cut a ping pong ball in half, make a black dot in the center for the pupel, then cut out the eyes on a framed picture/portrait and secured the halfed ball to the back of the painting behind each eye. So that you see the inside of the ball with the dot. The illusion should follow you as you walk by. Does that make sense?

Originally Posted by scourge

I think I saw someone cut a ping pong ball in half, make a black dot in the center for the pupel, then cut out the eyes on a framed picture/portrait and secured the halfed ball to the back of the painting behind each eye. So that you see the inside of the ball with the dot. The illusion should follow you as you walk by. Does that make sense?

Freaky! I like it! It is the inverted bust concept just scaled down to eyeball size.

Check this guy's out for a cool cheap option:

DAVE LOWE DESIGN the blog: '08 Halloween #31: Make a Moving Monster Eye

Hey, that's a really neat way to do it. I had no idea.

You can use those white face masks,turn them around,spray the inside with a neon color,put it inside a shadow box & whalla following face !
For a picture, get a pic with a portrait on it,cut out the eyes (oval) take a pic of real eyes or pic of, & place them behind the pic were the eyes were about an inch behind the rear of pic.When you walk by the eyes will follow you illusion !!

The "monster eye" method is the one that I know of too.
Hmmm, I have a second floor window that is woefully underutilized at halloween...

DB