The most exciting jewelry pieces ever created have story behind them. Weather we are talking about the diamond crown of Russian princess or the ring our grandmother gave us, besides taking into consideration the material value of the piece it is much more important to us to bond with its story, with what it represents for us personally.
The more emotional the story is the stronger is that bond, this is why, when we decided to design the jewelry replicas from TV series, it was obvious that we should start from one of our favorite shows - Spartacus and particularly from the necklace worn by the gladiator Crixus (Actor Manu Bennett), because both the story and the carachter were so great! To begin making the "Harbinger of Death" - Crixus Champion of Capua Necklace we firstly had to gather all available visual reference and close-ups on the necklace.
After browsing various official and fan websites for the show and Crixus character we had enough HD images to proceed with sketches and 3D design.Our initial goal was to create a necklace that will resemble the original to the point that anyone who watched the show could recognize it immediately. But we also wanted to add more class to it. We also needed it to be as lightweight and as durable as possible so that it could be worn to any everyday activity, such as gym, shower, beach and so on. Many fans of the show are serious abouth their gym routine, so we wanted to give them a jewelry to withstand extreme conditions.
We decided to get rid of extra rings at the very back of the necklace to make it more comfortable to wear on a regular basis, again having active lifestyle in mind, and so, after sketching, measuring and detailed modeling of all the parts of the Crixus choker the final design was ready.Now we had to put everything into a 3D model and when we had a ready file with optimized for 3D printing 3D model of the necklace we could estimate the volume of metal (sterling silver) that would be needed to cast the very first necklace prototype.Sterling silver was our initial choice for the crow necklace due to it's characteristics and affordable price. It's ability to oxydate created that tarnished, worn out look which was much needed for a warrior necklace that has been in many fights and was worn by an amazing fighter Crixus. After that each part has been printed on 3D printer in special wax. That wax used particulary for 3D printing is very fragile and the entire printing process can take up many hours depending on the volume of the model. The ready wax prototype was used to cast each part of the necklace in metal.Finally after approximately 3 weeks of hard work, every detail was casted and all parts were assembled, crafted and polished by hand to avoid any imperfections. The 8 mm diameter genuine black premium leather Bolo cord was securely attached to the matching in size hollows at the back side of the crow skulls and the necklace was ready! A few month passe dby and we also started offering a gemstone setting into the crow's eyes: genuine Rubies, Emeralds and Sapphires (blue and yellow). Check it out the gemstone necklace version and gemstone options here and send us a message if you'll have more questions!