For this project, I wanted to create a photo realistic watch! I chose to try to model the Omega Seamaster wristwatch as closely as I could, using only vectors.

I started by looking up as many reference photos as I could and then got to work on sketching. My main goal for this first part was just to understand how the watch was put together and the overall how the surfaces reflected light.

Next, I worked on just creating the basic shapes of the watch, I didn't want to get too distracted by the details just yet. This part took a lot of math and measuring.

Next I started working from the outside in mimicking the basic shapes of shadows and highlights I saw using shapes, clipping masks, various blending modes, a few gradients, and a whole lot of Gaussian Blur.

I got a lot of feedback from my colleagues about what was and wasn't working, so I went back to worked armed with new ideas! Slowly but surely I added one shape at a time until I was satisfied with the way my watch was shaping up. Next it was time to add details and textures, refine and polish up.

Left: My final Vector, center: the reference photo, right: an Outline view of the shapes I made.

I'm very proud of the way that my final image turned out. It might not be 100% identical to my reference photo, but for two weeks of work, I feel that I was able to make a very convincing watch, and capture some of the finer details of the real thing.