To create a photo-realistic image is quite a feat. It was cool to really look at each highlight, shadow, curve, color, moving piece, etc. of the watch of my choice and try to recreate it in my own vector illustration.
SKETCHES
I experimented with both normal wristwatches and pocket watches for my sketching. I tried out different face designs and light sources to see which angles I liked. I also tried out different watch hands and arrows. I enjoy the sketching process because it helps me visualize the workload.
STARTING OUT
It’s crazy all of the shapes that go into making a realistic-looking image. I feel like I will never look at a watch the same way again. There are so many highlights and shadows that change just from the position of your watch. Here are the bare bones of the progress with working to vectorize the original photo image.
FIRST DRAFT
It took a lot of work to get my various sketch ideas brought to life. The left image is the original picture of the real watch. The right image is my progression of vectorizing the watch so far. This first draft was definitely rough around the edges. The biggest critique I received from my peers was to utilize gradients more and to bring out the shadows. I really worked on adding gradients especially around the gold rim and on the watchband.
FINAL VECTOR
After many hours and learning more about capturing light and shadows, I feel I adequately created a photo-realistic image of a watch as seen on the right. I added gradients, s curves, blending, gaussian blur, and many other techniques to bring this watch to life. I hope to continue learning and examining the work of professionals to increase my skills in creating life-like objects.
