Timepiece

I really enjoyed this project. We were challenged to create any kind of timepiece, but when we were finished it needed to look like a photograph, not an illustration. Some chose a stopwatch or a pocket watch, and others chose alarm clocks. For me, I needed something very basic. Here is my finished piece:

Process

I have to say I was really nervous about this. I couldn’t imagine myself making something look so realistic. I think that’s another thing I love about my vector graphics class. I am really pushed and challenged, but I love the challenge.

My experience in ART 110 (basic art/drawing) was extremely helpful as well. Knowing basic drawing principles, and that I am capable of seeing shapes within form gave me confidence.

This time I began with searching for a watch on Pinterest to use as a guide. I found these two:

And here are the sketches of the different variables I created of these two watches. Sketching in crayon helps me to not add too much seriousness and detail.

After my sketches were complete the real fun began. I worked for hours…HOURS, adding layer upon elliptical layer for the watch face base. Not complaining – it was just time consuming. My biggest worry was that I didn’t have a really good grasp on the light source. Here are a few of my draft process images:

Layers and gradients

Six fifteen … somewhere.

After I added the face layers I moved on to the watch numbers. There’s an amazing rotate tool in Illustrator that created these in about 13 seconds. I used the rotate tool to add the additional time marks as well.

At this point it was time to turn in my draft – the 90% finished draft – that looks like a photograph, at least 90% of a photograph. I added a few features to make it more complete, but they were actually just placeholder objects to show I was headed in the right direction. Here is the rough draft I turned in:

Not really that realistic. Meh. But a good start.

Here are a few more of my process images:

Playing with shadow and depth. Notice I have changed the actual time and added shadow to the hands as well.

Getting the face color right.

In this step I added shadow to show the light source.

I was playing around with the different inset dial styles here. I also fixed the upside-down numerals on the lower half.

Here’s the inset dial I chose.

Now for the watch band. I was really pleased with how the leather texture turned out.

Thinking about how best to add the metal handles.

I spent a lot of time on the metal bars that make up the band, and I was not happy with any of them. Because the clock was ticking (full of time puns today) I added the simple version you see here. Still not happy with them and it will have to be something I work on after my assignment is turned in.