The objective was to remake a photographed watch. I was going to do this through adobe illustrator and remake it down to the details. Doing this project, I wanted to gain a greater knowledge of why objects looked a certain way due to colors and textures, and also the why behind highlights and shadows. Why does one surface that is completely one color, look like it has lots of colors in it?

I first started out with my sketching process. I wanted to see exactly where my highlights and shadows were on the watch. Sketching out details of the watch also let me know exactly where my light source was coming from and this was going to help me later on as I got into the illustrator program and started creating these shapes.

My first draft in illustrator was pretty basic. I tried to get the solid shapes first. I didn’t want to trace over the watch, the idea was to open my eyes to see things that I may not normally see just by tracing. So by using the image as just a reference, it challenged me more. 

As I started to add smaller shapes, the watch felt a little more real, but not nearly enough like the reference. It wasn’t until I started adding gradients and shapes of highlights and shadows to my watch objects that it started to resemble the real thing. You can see how doing this to the two smaller circles in the face, made it look sunk in. 

I really struggled trying to figure out the texture on the band. I spent probably 4 hours trying to figure this one part of the project out. I didn’t get an understanding of what I really needed to do until I talked with professional illustrator Corry Kerr. He showed me how to properly do the texture and how to play with the different elements to make it look more real.  Below is my failed attempts. 

Here is my final watch next to the real image. Can you tell which one is mine?

And that’s that! Success! A fake watch that looks real. Using shapes to add highlights and shadows and then a blur affect was extremely helpful in mimicking the subtle parts of the image. Gradients helped as well with the watch casing. It allowed me to get the bright light sources and dark shadows of the case just right across each ring. The texture of the band looks like real leather. Taking an image and playing with it in photoshop and then making that image into shapes on illustrator allowed me to get that texture to look lifelike. I understand better how to recognize my light source and also to notice all the different reflections you get onto different elements when that light source is hitting the object from a certain direction. My light source is directly in front of the watch, but slightly raised (really good studio lighting). I can tell because of things like the slight shadows underneath the hands, also how the second hand gets darker as it goes out. It was a big challenge. I’m glad I made it. 

If you want a difficult project, find your own watch and try to replicate it in illustrator!