Constant compromise. Coming up with a tessellation is an excercise in seeing both sides of the coin. A long process of shifting the needs on both sides of the line and allowing the other side to use available space, without loosing sight of your own purpose, your own needs. Finding a crack somewhere, nudging a line, inserting a limb in a space between. Give and take. Just as in life. Elle philosophise.

Studying the rules, stretching the rules. Overlapping uses, dual purpose space. Pushing and breaking the rules of symmetry, all in good fun. Sharing Electron Blue within crystals.

I will illustrate my list of cheats (symmetricks/symétrucs) with tessellations I’ve already created.

1 — Horizontally mirrored faces, it’s becoming a common cheat, I’ve used it many times. You will see it again in other tessellations below. The face is mirrored right in the middle of the eyeballs.

 

2 — Three-way faces, not as common as the above, but with a bit of minimalism, it can work quite well. The nose and mouth triple as eyes and eyebrows.

 

3 — One juggler’s ankle being used as the other’s face, with the dual purpose eyes trick on top of that. For that matter, anything serving a dual purpose is cool.

 

4 — Hands used as hair, this is a recent one. Just a minor deviation from the rules, a mere stretching of reality. Thumb and sideburn are one and the same.

 

5 — Moustaches doubling as eyebrows, the Unibrow Boxer. Beards as hair. Common ears, common eyes. Somehow, just seems to weirdly work.

 

6 — Many huge exaggerations in fish eye lenses, lots of these. From Kevin Lumsey, to Elaine worrying about her messed-up hair, standing on her tiny legs wearing her short red shorts.

 

 

7 — This one is a bit weird too, getting shot by the same gun you are shooting at someone else, which happens to be you too.

 

8 — How about crossing boundaries into another instance of yourself, an alternate universe type of situation. Being leashed with a dog in another parallel universe.

 

9 — Sharing the same barbell at the gym with your alter ego, c’est de l'”altérophilie”! Usually spelled with an “h”. Hey, I’m messing with symmetry rules, I may as well mess with spelling!

 

10 — Two cooks serving the same pizza while wearing the same hat. Okay, this is just too sick.

 

11 — Linking arms with fellow artists, this one is a bit difficult to explain. Not sharing space but intertwining it. I am part of you and you are part of me.

 

12 — Similar to the above artist, the hiker is sharing the same hiking pole and compass. Nice socks Dude.

 

 

13 — Four identical twins sharing the same soccer ball. All of them are reaching for the same ball. This one also uses the horizontal mirror through the eyeballs trick. Bald babies.

 

14 — Cutting your own hair. At this rate, with a tumble of elements like that, your hair will never grow long.

15 — Miss Prissy sharing her shoes, or part of her feet with herself. This one is difficult to spot as it is but a small cheat in the whole of the tessellation.

That wraps it up for now. All my cheats together on one page.

Cheers! (anagram of Escher)