The toughest part of this dial has to be keeping the markers and track proud of the surface while the rest gets carved away. The maker handled it by working from a grayscale image and using a 30w fiber laser with a raycys source to remove the surrounding metal, leaving the hour markers, minute track and little star standing as part of the dial itself. That spiraling guilloché texture radiating from the center is the result, and it looks remarkably clean for something done by ablation.
The sequence behind the Chameleon reads like a proper small-shop workflow. After engraving the pattern, indices and central star into a round metal blank, the central hole was deburred with a miniature round file, the face was hand-sanded with a blue sanding stick, and everything got a wash with a small brush and soapy water. Then a black base coat went on in a spray booth, chameleon paint was sprayed over it, and the raised areas were sanded with a block while wearing finger cots until the polished metal showed through again.
Plenty of small decisions stand out. The double baton at twelve gives the layout a focal point, the applied four-pointed star sits nicely between the center hole and the twelve marker, and the integrated silver-tone rim carrying the minute track frames the whole face. The central cutout with its silver-tone border keeps things tidy around the hand pinion. The colour shift itself, deep blue rolling over to purple as the viewing angle changes, is the payoff for all that careful layering.
One open thread: the maker asked whether anyone has tried colour-shifting paint over a laser-engraved texture, so clearly the paint-over-engraving combination is still being explored. Since dials get cut in different sizes as needed, it will be interesting to see where this approach goes next.
Project by Rexx Timepieces. Watch it on their YouTube channel: