While working on a high-end wristwatch asset at work, I developed a real fascination for mechanical watches. Since I can’t use that asset as a portfolio piece just yet, I chose to work on another one on my own. I specifically looked for pieces with exposed movements, trying to find one I liked the most visually, but also one that would appear complicated. There were many options to chose from, but I settled on the Grand Complication by A. Lange & Söhne.

After work already began and I was half-way done with the movement alone, I discovered the Datograph, its movement considered by many to be the most beautiful movement ever. This will be a project for another time.

While modelling the piece, I got a real kick out of reconstructing the movement. Thankfully I was bale to find plenty of photographs and some schematics online. Working on the dial brought another huge set of issues I did not initially anticipate. It took several days to find the font, symbol size and width to match the original. While it’s still not a 100% match, I learned a hole lot about the visual design of watch dials and text legibility.

The next huge challenge was lighting the watch. I scrapped the entire first set of images because I found the lighting to be too messy, had to scrap the second round too because then the lighting looked too even and too perfect. In the end I had to carefully find a balance between the two and spend some time playing with AOVs in comp. To this day I think these are the most complicated lighting setups I had to do for a personal project.