It wasn’t so long ago that we burned people at the stake for just the kind of sorcery that paper artist Johan Scherft has made his life’s work. (I say “we” but I was usually off sick on those days.) Not content merely to create ultra-lifelike recreations of various birds out of paper, the artist has, with the help of a few gears and the inner workings of a music box, brought to life a paper chameleon.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=1LkoQX5qwUY]
As Doug North at The Automata Blog explains,
“The automaton is cleverly-built in many respects. First, the paper figure is just amazing. Next, the entire thing is a reflection. This allows the actual model to be oriented horizontally, providing some design advantage. Also, the linkage that makes the eye move is magnetism!”
Pretty cool indeed š
