3D engraving | GIZMODO.cz

Technology mixed with design gives creators the chance to make anything possible. Through 3D-engraving, even the tiniest of products can be turned into entire worlds, which goes to show that the beauty of rendering in 3D is in the details. Andre Caputo recently took his personal taste and 3D-rendering skills and turned them into a fantastical watch that brings you to the North Pole and delivers you straight to the front steps of Santa’s Workshop.

His finished rendered timepiece is called Majestic and it certainly upholds its title. The watch is ladened with golden cogs and candy accents that instantly inspire visions of whimsical toymaker’s storefronts with snowy rooftops and chimneys billowing with smoke -think Willy Wonka meets watch-making! The watch’s interior depth is hypnotizing for its five-layered dial and latticed network of exposed sprockets and gears. The ultimate timepiece is as zany and flashy as it gets, but the best Christmas movies usually are and this watch brings you right back to the first time you watched your favorite. With all of the details that fill this digital canvas, the timepiece turns out to be relatively easy to read, thanks to the bold, golden hoops that enwrap each big, clunky hour-marker and the smaller hour-markers that dot in between. Just below the dome-shaped crystal, that encases the miniature world of toymaking, reads the days of the week, the specific date is indicated by a red circle that demarks the correct day of the month. Additionally, the candy cane bracelet wraps around your wrist with an armadillo-like cuff and big dials and knobs surround the watch face’s perimeter for easy adjustment of the hour, minute, or date.

Andre Caputo designed this rendering to merge personal taste with technological artwork. Each detail of this watch shimmers like toys from Santa’s factory and sends you right into the spirit of the winter season with brass pulleys and chains, micro Candyland-inspired bridges, and details fit for a fairytale galore.

Designer: Andre Caputo

Luxury watchmaker Jacob & Co. is an independent watch marque, renowned for its exquisite watches that esteemed horologists hold high up in their collections. Following the success in high-quality jewelry watches, Jacob & Co. has expanded its Astronomia multi-axis tourbillon art collection with a 3D engraved and hand-painted menagerie of animals – real and mythical – under a sapphire crystal dome in 18k gold casing.

The Astronomia Tourbillon is a series of cutting-edge timepieces that both intrinsically and from within, elevate the art of watchmaking above the Earth. The collection is a “poetic visual rendering of the celestial world,” and features four satellites – a rotating magnesium globe, an in-house gravitational tourbillon, one-carat 288-faceted diamond, and a time dial – all of which can be seen rotating around the dial. With the rare 3D engraving of dragons, phoenix, serpents, monkeys, lions, and tigers amid others, the Swiss brand has been able to create several Astronomias unlike anything seen before in the horological world.

3D engraving is seen in a host of the Jacob & Co. Astronomia Tourbillon such as the Astronomia Cobra, Astronomia Dragon, Astronomia Phoenix, Astronomia Art Tigers, etc., which combine engraving and miniature painting. Astronomia dial is an exquisite gallery of a hand-engraved dragon, cobra, and other sculptures that seem entangled within the tourbillon movement and give the timepieces a symbolic character that the watch collectors have turned to repeatedly. These designs are extremely cumbersome to achieve – for instance, the cobra sculpture is conceived over six months with the first three going into finishing the 3D engraves inside the solid casing and another three months seeing an artesian painstakingly chisel, hand-paint the piece of art.

Each of these extraordinary timepieces is, therefore, an embodiment of uncompromised attention to detail, which is immediately evident at the first glance. For collectors who do not fancy the wildlife but relish the cityscapes, Jacob & Co. also has miniature renditions of key landmarks engraved on Astronomia dials. For instance, the handmade and hand-painted Moscow timepiece features 3D-engraved miniatures of Saint Basil’s Cathedral, the Bolshoi Theatre, and the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. The watchmaker can customize watches of all the great cities of the world to ensure every collector can have his city replica in his collection.

Designer: Jacob & Co.