Coupla neat new projects…

This first project illustrates the evolution of a custom, hand-carved pendant or charm. In this case, a client that likes the work he sees on my website approached me with the idea of re-creating the bracelet that Angelina Jolie fondled while dining with Johnny Depp in the movie “The Tourist”. Apparently the client’s wife had fallen in love with either the movie or the symbolism of the charm, which featured the Greek God, Janus; God of beginnings and portals. Heck, why not? I’m not one to “rip off” a design idea but I like the symbolism of the Janus charm myself, and I’m pretty sure that whatever patent the Greeks may have had on the image of their God has expired long ago. And since I was interested in reproducing the project, discussions with the client led me to reduce my normal custom fee to him and go through a couple of extra steps so that I can continue to produce this or some minor variation of it in silver or gold. Red Box provided the movie and I was off and running.
First thing was to slab some carving wax and rough out the image…

Then add some detail…
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From this finished carving I made a mold from which I could work to add the remaining detail of the charm as pictured in the movie. The charm in the movie had beading around the edge and a red gem on the back side. Here’s the finished wax model with beading…
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The rough casting…
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And the finished pendant…
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In this case we selected a peridot for the back because it was the client’s wife’s birthstone.
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This next project came from London…through the client’s vacation in Italy! It’s fun working with people from all over the world. This is a color suite of corundum (sapphire and ruby) with a diamond. This project is also executed in 18K yellow gold.