I run a small side business on Etsy, selling gemstone jewelry handmade within my family. One of the collections is a “birthstone” necklace and earrings set that I designed and fabricate myself, made of genuine gemstones for each of the corresponding months. This gave me the idea to explore a birthstone-oriented watch face.
So I started sketching something in various different forms over the past few weeks. So far I’ve ended up with the mess below, which at this point I don’t know how I feel about, although my mom (who is the majority artisan of the jewelry business) didn’t like it!
This started last month, so it is Amethyst for February. The design features 2 different gemstone cuts for hour markers (bezel set, for those familiar), and the facet outlines of a round brilliant cut stone engraved in the center.
As I’ve mentioned in my profile, I love vintage analog faces and their simplicity. So while I didn’t want to make it “messy” (for my taste) with complications, I still needed it to have some useful functionality. So I’m experimenting with having complications that fade out: I added steps/battery/date at 30% opacity that turn 100% opaque for 2 seconds, each time the watchface becomes active. I went a step further by turning all hands 55% opaque during those same 2 seconds, so that one can still read the complications should they be covered up by the hands (which, too often, they do).
What do lady members of the Facer community think?
Is it worth pursuing the remaining months?
Hard to see, because of the faintness or the size? Probably both?!
Go into dim and come back out, they will be 100% black for 2 seconds. Was meant to experiment with keeping the watchface clean and clear, but perhaps the experiment is not working well at that size/opacity.
Yeah . Make more of the gems and get away from the white Background. When I am not on a train i can show you how to have a gyrating glint to the gems. If you are intrested . People are not that much intrested in flippy falppy faces. They BUY what they see in the Preview. Unless of course it is completely black, there are a few Followers who are Intrigued by that.
That image was purposely meant to be a faint pattern to hide in the background, it looked messy when I had it darker. Certainly darkening the text/icons can help, I put them at 40% opacity just now. But as far as size (wait, who said size doesn’t matter?! ) I’ll have to experiment to make the text fit within the lines of the background image.
By the way, after 50+ highly fun vintage recreations (some frustrating because of constant calculations, but still fun), this is only my second original.
I’m almost done with a battery-lover version (ie, black), but unsure of how it looks. I’ll post when done.
Meanwhile, I’ll probably start stockpiling gemstone components for other months-- which really adds up in real life: my necklace collection has 23 variations for the 12 months, because of multiple choices for certain months as well as multiple varieties of certain stones. They are amazing in real life.
And BTW, original design for March/Aquamarine, designed and fabricated by yours truly:
This batch of Amethysts I think I found on eBay, and I had to modify their original shapes. I didn’t want them all to look the same, I wanted them to be different stone to stone.
Unfortunately all the real stones in my jewelry stock are spherical beads like the photo above, they don’t lend themselves in any way to become the kite and rectangular shapes I needed here.
Only familiar with paint.net myself but you could make a transparent diamond mask in one layer and a photo of the beed under that layer and then move the photo under the transparent diamond, merge the layers and then delete the solid backgound
I like that idea, but I think you could compromise and make the font bigger yet still fade for minimalism after it displays dark. Maybe 4 or 5 seconds instead of 2? I’m just guessing but seems like 2 wouldn’t be enough.
You have a great idea with a gemstone for each hour - focus on that and make the rest minimal and elegant. I would ditch the soccer ball background myself and just give the watch some dimension/shadowing.
Aside from the gemstone markers, the center’s diamond outline was meant to be somewhat of a focal point without being too bold, which is why I made it a beveled engraving in the source image which in turn makes it faint. It would look too empty without it…
I actually like the fractured pattern in the center. Hadn’t though of it ad footbal like until you mentioned it but it is less regular than the standard hecagon pattern. I’d stick with it personally as it is very faint but gives close up personality.
Not many recognize the top view of a diamond (or technically, a round brilliant cut gemstone) over its side view. Best recognized by those in the trade and (more importantly!) those who wear them.
) I’ll have to experiment to make the text fit within the lines of the background image.
