Well, i agree that there is no difference in creating art using canvas, clay or digital programs… it is art creating a portrait, a still life or whatever…
But copying/digitalizing an existing watch design in 100% is in my honest opinion unethical.
If you do it for your own pleasure and to improve your skills it‘s totally okay for me… but you never should publish it.
Last thing I want to do is get in an internet argument, so I will agree to disagree 
If you replicate, duplicate, copy, etc. someone else’s work, that is copyright infringement and it is illegal. Depending on who you steal from, you could lose money, your cars, house, and possibly wages.
I hope you don’t do it anywhere else either. Put yourself in the place of the original artist. How would the owner of the work feel knowing his/her work has been stolen?
I had it happen to me. The person who took my work lied about where he got it. It was not a fun situation to deal with.
Um, I think this is going a little sideways. I’m not advocating stealing anything. I’m simply making the point that there is a true art involved in drawing anything at a high level, including an arcuate rendering of a mechanical watch. And i for one appreciate such art when done at a high level, because I have great admiration and appreciation of both the subject matter and the skills/talent it takes to do it well. and to be honest there are very few people who do it at such a level, I’m thinking we may even have something entirely different in mind when taking about drawn replicas as an art form. I can’t apparently post pictures from the phone Facer app, maybe I’ll post a pic tomorrow from the computer.
As for what you wrote about, Of course if someone is taking work from your watch face and putting it in their own watch face that is stealing and there is nothing artful about it. But that isn’t even remotely what I’m taking about.
There are people who spend hours and hours over months to build from scratch a convincing facade of a Lamborghini over their 20 year old Toyota. Not my thing, but I’ve seen an example that was a spectacular artistic achievement.
Like this one? 
Well, okay. We all got the sense and i agree that art has a wide range of definition.
That looks like it took a lot of effort to make lol, not even kidding
Lol, that’s not quite the one I had in mind, but I suppose that’s quite artful in its own way too.
@Rator @GAUSS Art or Illegal/Unethical?
I ask with the most sincerity in the interest of furthering the discussion of an important topic. Not trying to be provocative.
Ok, if a tattoo artist tattoos Guernica from Picasso on someone, it’s ok. That would never be confused with the original and would never take from the profits of the original artist.
In your case above, those are drawings/paintings of watches. While that artist can never claim to have “come up with” that painting, it is a nice painting of a watch. But it would never be confused with the actual watch, which is…of course, a watch and not a painting lol.
Your question is, is it art or is it illegal. Well…it is art created from art. I think that’s the distinction. I don’t exactly consider a tattooer an “artist” if they just go online and trace 3 other peoples illustrations and tattoo them on me. If they drew it from scratch from their head, then tattooed it, that’s an artist. Otherwise, they’re more of a technician than an artist.
Things like that are only illegal if you sell it and if you claim it to be your own. Art from art is not original art, so what do you call it and how do you classify it? I dunno. They’re replicas really. I don’t think anyone here will tell you that it DOESN’T take skill to create those images above, but they ARE just drawings/paintings of someone else’s art.
I guess I draw the line when someone draws someone else’s drawing. Or when someone makes a watch of someone else’s watch in this case.
This is Art. It‘s not really cloning a product. It‘s an interpretation.
Just to make it clear: I was open to that last discussion and i am able to change my mind if i find out that my conclusions were partly wrong.
It‘s as well absolutely okay to clone watch faces for your own purposes (i stated that before). But it‘s not okay to earn money, respect, follower, friends or other things with cloned things.
That‘s totally unethical imhO.
Such illegal things have to stay private.
Guys, I appreciate the thoughtful responses. I expect we’re more in agreement than disagreement. To me it’s definitely a nuanced issue and not black and white.
So @rator, yes these are artistic renderings of a watch using a medium different than the original. If we can agree that the medium, whether that be charcoal sketch, oil on canvas, or digitally drawn would all amount to the same thing, then that gets back to my earlier point that this is only an issue because a digitally rendered version can also be functional.
Although, as a side bar… our often very creative and inventive solutions for coding to replicate complex mechanical movements could be considered an art/craft in itself that we have full ownership of and has no relation to the original mechanical solutions.
And in the end, a digital functioning watch face is still not a mechanical watch. Imo, it can not be called a clone.
I would also take slight issue with your statement “they ARE just drawings/paintings of someone else’s art” . You seem to be implying that automatically diminishes their artistic merit. I don’t feel that is a given. In my view the artistic qualities of the work can still stand or fall on their own regardless of the subject. So naturally I extend that view to a artist-created rendering of a watch, regardless of the medium.
To me the distinction of being a legitimate art form is crucial to the consideration of legal/ethical issues. Obviously we all agree that selling such replicas, or making a replica and putting your name in place of the original brand is both unethical and illegal. But the creation of such art by itself, and even sharing among friends is not anywhere in the same conversation imo.
I think the issue is further complicated because 99% of replica watch face makers use photos of the real watch to build their replica and do not draw their own.work, and 99% of those are mediocre at best. And perhaps even worse people make their own design alterations to some of these watches yet leave the original brand or maker’s name on it. If that’s what this conversation was about I’d be totally on board calling it unethical. Sure, probably illegal too but really just more offensive and disrespectful. I seriously doubt the brands have put a lot of time into researching the watch face scene, but a superficial look would reveal a lot of crap out there with their names on it so I don’t blame them for trying to put a stop to it. (But I do still believe they are also lazily equating watch faces with actual physical watch knock-offs) So what I’m talking about in terms of replica “art” probably occupies less than .05 % of all the replicas out there. It’s certainly a lot easier to simply address the 99.5% and say it’s wrong.
Sorry, very long winded… 
. But as I’ve become quite serious and passionate about this very specific art form in which I consider myself among that .05% I have given it a lot of thought. …and I guess I’m a bit sensitive about what I do being lumped in with that other 99%.
I’m going to post some more pics layer to lend some visual accompaniment to my views.
Thanks for indulging me in this discussion
so same question? Art or Unethical/Illegal? Keep in mind, just as in the hand drawings posted above, these 3 watches are absolutely 100% “drawn” by hand in photoshop. every shape, texture, gear, screw head, shadow, light effect, jewel, etc… is created from a blank canvas with not one pixel cut from anywhere.
To me this is the heart of the matter. The artist can claim no ownership to the subject, but can claim 100% ownership of the creation of the resulting artwork.
now here is an example of unethical, disrespectful, and to me offensive… illegal? I don’t even care, that’s insignificant in this case compared to the poor taste in butchering Hajime Asaoka’s work (one of my favorite independent watch makers!) This screenshot is of a face I found here on Facer. The guy simply used a photo of this watch, then defaced it with awfully executed additional graphics, added his own branding yet left Asaoka’s name on it! … and the tourbillon isn’t even animated!
I hear what you’re saying but because it’s also a watch, it can possibly detract from the original designer’s profits. Say the person can’t afford the actual original watch, they may download this one on a smartwatch. That’s not cool. If it’s for personal use, then this is all irrelevant.
This, I think lol. As much as we’d like to think we would, people don’t really change their minds that easily, and “what is art” is too big of a polarising subject.
I’m with @kvansant in that the person who created the watch faces in photoshop is as much an artist as the person who created the watch faces as a tattoo or a drawing or whatever. The fact that one of these mediums could cut into someone’s profits, sure, that is a distinct line making something legal or illegal, but as far as Art goes? All of it is.
TL;DR – Asking if something is Art or is it Illegal makes no sense xD It can most definitely be both.
Maybe, but I’m not sure claiming ownership would always be a good idea …
A master forger may well own the canvas, paint, frame, etc. and all the brush works may be theirs but that does not mean that a forgery is legal.
Furthermore, intellectual property law is both complex and jurisdiction dependent. There are not just copyright laws, there are also laws addressing trademarks, registered designs and others.
Publishing a drawing ( pencil or Photoshop ) of someone else’s creation may breach any or all of the above. For example, in some places it is illegal to just make a copy of a registered design, even if the copy is kept private - of course the risk of legal trouble is slight if no-one knows, but it is still illegal. I say all this because it can be very difficult to determine if making a copy is illegal or not.
Ownership of the copy is perhaps not as relevant as ownership of the IP.
@Rator I think that’s a legitimate concern but with a big caveat, if we’re talking about a replica of a $50 Swatch, yeah maybe someone would be satisfied with a replica face on their Galaxy watch and not buy the real thing. But when we’re talking about very limited edition $100,000+ watches, it would laughable to suggest that a replica face could ever negatively influence a sale. But, in reality the opposite is much more likely. I know first hand of stories where someone has bought a real watch because they became enamored with it first as a replica watch face. I myself don’t expect to ever have the disposable income to be considering the 250k Voutilainen posted above, or even a 2-5K Rolex for that matter, but I probably will eventually succumb to the temptation to buy the $350 Seiko Presage Cocktail Time in blue, which am only captivated by because I drew a replica of it. There are literally hundreds of small brands and independent watch makers I am only aware of because of my interest in the art of watch faces.
Actually, kudos to Maurice Lacroix, AVI, Waldhoff, and the other established brands for partnering with Facer to introduce their brand and designs to the watch face community… I think they get it. Nobody is NOT going to buy the $10k Maurice Lacroix Masterpiece Gravity Blue because they downloaded the $1.99 watch face, but it’s not unrealistic to think someone who downloaded the watch face may now aspire to buy the real thing. Btw, I actually have made that face and mine looks better than the official one here on Facer 
@mikeoday thanks for chiming in. You bring up valid points. IP is a legitimate issue in all this, and I know as far as big brands such as Tag, Omega, etc… Brand management is a huge component of their business model, it’s just an automatic reflex for them to squash any perceived infraction regardless of context.
Years ago a friend of my Dad’s opened a small book store/cafe in a small college town. It was called the Hardback Cafe. After they had already been open for a few years suddenly they started getting harassed by lawyers for The Hardrock Cafe . Another case, a friend opened a very small music store in a small town, his last name was Gibson so he called it Gibson Music. It didn’t take long before he got letters from lawyers for Gibson Guitars. Both of the small town guys would have easily won their cases in court but would have gone bankrupt trying to go up against the resources of the mega-companies, so they acquiesced.
These stories aren’t exactly the same thing as making replica watch faces, but they still speak to the nuance of the IP issue and how context ought to be considered. But I guess for this discussion I’m more speaking to the art because I am an artist not a lawyer.
Anyway, I’ve said all I have to say (probably not ) I think the only reason I jumped into this thread was I was a bit triggered by the black and white condemnation of replicas as a whole and dismissal of something I consider a serious art form I am deeply involved in.
I think the original poster in this thread probably just wanted to know where he could find some crappy Rolex copies
Thanks @kvansant
I don’t think that is really relevant - it does not matter whether or not we think their behaviour is reasonable or not; if an IP owner chooses to protect their IP, that is their right. Or to put that another way, just because we may think an IP owner should provide an implicit license to use their IP for “unrelated or semi-related” use does not in fact create such a license.
For an example, suppose that brand X, who sells 10k or 100k watches, wants the option to one day enter the smartwatch market. If people have been publishing replicas of their designs then they may make less money trying to sell those very same designs in that market.
