You might be wondering why I am spending time recreating a watch on illustrator. The answer? A great portfolio piece. 

I cannot tell you the amount of hours I've put into this project so far. Mostly because I stopped keeping track after 10.

The image of the watch I got is from Alex Azabache on Pexels.com on a Photo Of Analog Sapphire Wrist Watch from the Pinnacle Watch Company.

I started off with 25 sketches of this same watch, trying my best to capture details in shadows, highlights and shapes. Below are my sketches.

From the sketches I've built a watch in Illustrator using guidelines and observation, but without tracing. That's probably the most challenging part of the project, but the best practice for building an illustrator profile. 

In Illustrator I started by creating the watch face shape. I used guidelines to keep the proper size of the watch face. At this point I created more and more shapes to match the original watch without tracing. I did not add shading until later.

In the picture above, I began to add some modest shading to the dial on the right, the watch face, and the lower watch band details.

In the draft below I was able to add more shading and details.

Here is the original image and my watch side by side. For my final draft, I need to add more shadows, highlights, and textures.