Photorealism in Illustrator is Not Impossible
This week, I tackled the challenge of creating a photorealistic watch in Adobe Illustrator. The design had to professional quality and accurately represent an analog watch.
I knew this was going to be a challenging project right off the bat. For starters, I've only ever used Illustrator to create simple designs, like sticker packs and icon sets. Creating a design that would perfectly mimic a real-life object seemed almost impossible.
Sketching:
I tried to choose a simple watch design to replicate for this project, and settled for the Fawler Beleza gold-toned watch, pictured below.
Original Fawler Watch, linked here
Using the picture as reference I started sketching, focusing on the shapes that made up the design as well as the smaller details that would help the design seem more lifelike.
While analyzing the reference image, I noticed that the watch's face was made up of 4-6 different layers of circles. Another set of details I took note of were the shadows and highlights on the letters and numerals. Focusing on the accuracy of these details, I believed, would really help me to make this design as realistic as possible.
Drafting:
While working on the draft, I spent a lot of time working on the shading of the band, and the reflections on the watch face.
Left: the original reference image; Right: My rendition
The most painful part of this draft was the knob on the side of the watch. Since the knob has a ridge along the outside edge, there were a lot of different highlights and shadows that had to be just so. In order to build the knob, I created a basic shape and then layered different trapezoids on top of it. Then, using a clipping mask, I worked on filling in different shadows, highlights, and mid-tones within those trapezoids. It took forever to do, but I think it was worth it.
Finishing Up:
After receiving some criticisms and feedback on my draft, I got to work on finishing the watch's face and finalizing the band. The face and, more specifically, the marbling on it, presented the biggest hurdle in this entire project. Marble is a crystalline substance, and so I felt it was going to be difficult to make this part of the design lifelike. But, after days of brainstorming, I figured it out.
First, I made the rough shape of the marbling using the blob brush tool so the edges would be uneven like the reference. Then I clipped in two layers of texturing, one perfectly vertical and another at about a 30 degree offset. This created two layers of noise that, when made partially transparent, mimicked the crystalline structure of marble.
After messing with the color and shading a bit the face was finished, and I was able to move on and complete the rest of the design.
The Final Look:
Left: Reference Image; Right: My rendition
This final design may not be perfect, but it is more realistic than I initially thought it would be. I'll admit, I went into this project doubtful of my creative and problem-solving abilities, but working on this photorealistic watch proved to me that I am more capable than I usually give myself credit for.
