Modeling a watch

Hi everyone!
I am new to blenderartists and wanted to share my current work in progress. I have been using blender for a while now - mostly for fun and as a hobby. I was always more interested in shaders and node setups to create realistic materials but I wanted to get more into modeling and thought I would model a watch I own (Tissot T-Touch … and NO i am not affiliated with them just happen to own and like one). I started with taking a picture looking straight on to the face of the watch to use as a reference background. Then I started with the most obvious part, the bezel (outer ring with the compass letters N-W-E-S on it) … and immediately realized, that every part of that watch is a rather complex piece of metal and actually quite challenging to recreate. I thought I will post my learning by doing progess here. Looking forward to your feedback!
The photo was not perfectly aligned with the camera but i model everything around the center with perfect symmetry.




I actually redid the bezel several times cuz something always didn’t quite work out with subdiv and the boolean cutouts… but i got it in the end and am happy with the result and learned a lot in the process.

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Then i went on to model the watch case including the lugs (all in 1 piece) and the back of the case which has 6 indentations (and actual holes in it - i guess for the altimeter). I Used simple cubes and boolean and then deleted the faces where the holes are. Also started playing with materials…

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made the 3 buttons on the side (and cutouts in the case)

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This is one of the links of the watch band done, added to the model with array modifier and attached to the watch case with 2 special link pieces. Also quickly added a watch dial (with a cutout for the digital display) and the hour and minute hand. Working on this i have to say I now really appreciate the amount of work that goes into designing a watch. There are so many details I only now start to see although I have owned this watch for many years. I also include 2 pics here of the watch for you to see what the band and bottom looks like IRL - cuz that’s coming next…

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Working on the clasp…

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created bump/roughness/displacement maps for the case cover and the clasp (illustrator & photoshop)

anyone any ideas for a background / environment / setting so that the final render is not just a watch floating in the air?

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Lovely modelling and detail. Watch pictures are normally either concept ideas for production / development, or marketing images for sales. Concept images tend to be more sketchy and less refined than a photo-real 3D render. If you search Google images for “watch advertisement”, you will be spoilt for choice on how the professionals display their marketing watch images.

Thx! Seems to me that for marketing images the backgrounds are very often kept very simple. For display in store windows they use plastic stands that stretch out the band and hold it in place… I will try some things :wink:

Impressive! When you started to learn these things? And how much time it took to finish the job(project)? I am just starting to learn. Best Tactical Watches Reviews 2018: Find the Quality Military Grade watch I am trying to make some tactial watch like those watch images. Don’t know it possible or not but will try.

I spent the last 2 days adding a bunch of details everywhere and tweaking the materials and surface imperfections (scratches, fingerprints on the glass, … from poliigon.com) and created the dial (illustrator)

added model details: pin-holes, pins, little engraved arrows in the exchangeable links at the clasp, cut-out in the clasp for the buttons, and many minor tweaks everywhere including fixes in topology (mirror modifier left unwanted faces inside the links that caused strange issues with boolean modifiers!)

materials: scuffs and scratches on all metal pieces, fingerprints on crystal, generally many many tweaks PLUS tiny grooves in all metal pieces that are actually visible on the metal when you look real close (bump, radial on bezel, linear on all other pieces, simple anisotropic shader was not good enough for closeups :p)

also played around with various HDRIs for lighting
… will need to get higher resolution images (surface imperfections) from poliigon for 4k and closeup renders
(btw: YES my watch IS scratched up a bit :D)

some (almost) final renders coming up soon

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currently rendering a little animation - coming soon!
here are 2 stills - what do you think? any ideas what could be improved?

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Here is the animation: https://youtu.be/cgif7gNvntA
After the first try I re-rendered the animation without any surface imperfections because it didn’t fit the “commercial” feel of the video.
Any suggestions?