WATCHA DOING- A Timeless Project

By Anne Smith

The Timekeeper’s Quest:

I set out to make a photo-realistic watch made of vectors. First, I sought out a map in the form of photo and digital references. I found a watch that I liked and started to make it.

The Reference Mistake:

As you can see, this watch is obviously not even the same watch as the one at the top. This is because, I found a watch that I liked, but about eleven hours into the project, it was pointed out to me that my reference photo didn’t have nearly enough resolution or focus to give me the details that I would need to make my vector watch look real. I looked for a similar watch photo, but my search came up empty and I scrapped out this watch for a better one. It’s enough to say that I learned the power of a good (or bad) reference.

The Real Beginning:

I did some hunting, found a watch that I liked with a good reference picture and started sketching. My first sketch was simple so that I could get used to the shapes and values of the watch. Later sketched were more detail focused.

The Second Real Beginning:

Once I had my sketches down, I got to work with converting the sketches into vectored shapes and lines. I started with the big shapes, targeting for accuracy with the frame shapes rather than detail at this point. Once I had things lined up the way that I wanted them to be I turned on the detail starting with the watch face.

Facing Time:

Something that I’ve found in creating art is that it’s important to get the details as exact as possible on the things that people look at first. With people sketches, I focus on the person’s eyes first so that the drawing will resemble the person and people will be able to recognize them. This is because a person’s eyes are the gateway to the soul. Nail the eyes, and the drawing will come together, mess up the eyes and the drawing will fall apart. The same goes for a watch. People look at a watch to see the time, make that work and the rest will work too.

With the watch face, the most challenging thing was not the map, but the little golden dots that mark the time. It took me quite a while to get the dots to look metallic and like they belonged together. The reflections on the dots each signify specific shapes and lighting in the background, with each dot reflecting those shapes from a slightly different angle.

The Tech in Texture:

Texture is made of lights and shadows hitting objects at different angles. This sounds kind of tricky, and it was difficult to make the texture look just right. But, having texture was essential to make this watch look less like a bunch of shapes and more like a photo.

Feedback the Suggestions:

Something that is essential to any project is getting another pair, or two, of eyes to give feedback and suggestions. Every person sees the world differently and thus focuses on different things. Someone might notice something that you completely overlooked, two heads are better than one and all that.

That being said, I received suggestions with my reflections and shadows. One person noticed that my alignment was ever so slightly off and pointed it out to me. Another suggested that I elevate my contrast levels so that my shapes could stand out even more. These were very helpful and important suggestions that I really appreciate.

The Final Ticking of the Clock:

The last things that I worked on were the metal reflections on the case and the metal attachments to the watch band. I finalized the last touches and watch was complete.