Horological Meandering

Fun with calipers, an illustration project . . .

Hey TM, hi all,

I'm in the middle of a fun illustration project that I thought you might like to see. I'm an industrial designer and illustrator by trade, but have never attempted to create a watch movement. I thought this would be a good opportunity to brush up on software tools and get a little practice. Okay, a lot of practice as it turns out, because this has become very complicated.

To start the project I bought a wonderful vintage Hamilton 21 jewel movement and disassembled it for a really close look. The thing is just a beautiful piece of work, and I hope that despite my disassembly it will one day run again.

So here is a shot of some basic data, the raw nurbs surfaces used to create the illustration:

From here it's exported to the illustration software, where the surfaces are given color, texture, reflective characteristics, etc. Here is where I'm at this week:

So as you can see I still have a way to go, but I think it's looking pretty good, and I'm looking forward to being finished! The surface decoration I'm showing isn't completely accurate; the perlage on the real movement is on the dial side, not this side, but I like the way it looks and now I'm out of control

Hope you enjoyed the pictures,

Jeff