Photorealistic Timepiece
Project Description:
Photorealism is the genre in which artists study a photo and then attempts to reproduce the image as realistically as possible in another medium. For this project, I use the picture of a watch that had moving/mechanical parts to recreate it as a picture, using Adobe Illustrator.
The objective of this project was to demonstrate how accurate the process and the final product could look after applying shadows, gradients, texture, and blending modes to the watch.
Sketch Process
The sketching process started with the separation of each part of the watch and visually analyzing the shapes, the corners, the shadows, and the highlights of the watch. I also wrote the actions I had to take such as rotating numbers, adding the handles dots, and which texture I had to choose for the inside of the watch.
Drafts:
Draft 1: The first draft was mainly to get all the shapes done, figure out the colors I should apply, and which font to use.
Draft 2: I started incorporating shadows to my design and reducing the flat look of the watch. In this stage I received some feedback about finding a better way to replicate each piece of the watch. I learn that instead of having the photograph and the design side by side, I should create a clipping mask of the part I wanted to recreate. That would help me to to better observe the shapes, colors and other details I had to match.
Draft 3: I applied the advice about clipping every part of the watch and that made the watch look more realistic. Thanks to that I applied more shadows, and worked with more detail.
Draft 4: I polished every corner of the watch, added texture to the part in the middle, and created more lines for the inside of the watch.
Final Design:
The final design presents a photorealistic version of my watch. The shadows and the blending were key to make the watch look like a photograph. I learned that it is important to see where the lighting source is coming from in an object. It is also important to know the difference between a shadow, a highlight, and a blending more and knowing when to apply each of them.
Conclusion:
it is possible to replicate an object and make it look like a photograph. I had never thought I could make something out of shapes and strokes that could look like an actual picture. Even though there are a few things to improve on, this watch matched the look of the photograph, the shadows, the colors, the shapes, and the font used in the original picture.
