Defined Green Lantern Comic Rings

[Gregatron]

…well, I had a big thrill, today.

The opportunity came along to show Ethan Van Sciver himself my current renders of the REBIRTH and Sinestro Corps rings.

He said “they look exactly right”.

Based on that, and assuming the test prints check out, I probably won’t be making any more changes. Why would I?

 

[Gregatron]

Test prints are in. Some quick observations:


* Overall, I’m very pleased. These are big improvements over the previous batch.

* I’m now thinking that maybe 6mm wide shanks are a little too small and dainty. 7-8mm might be better. Some of these designs could stand to look a little more robust. Of course, one of the goals of this round of prints was to see just how the designs would look when miniaturized as reasonably small as possible. Now, I may have to go back and embiggen some of them.

* The 22mm V2 symbol-piece seems TOO small. Might have to bump it back up to 24-25mm.

* That being said, the V3 looks quite good. I may have to allow the V2 and V3 to diverge in regards to their symbol sizes.

* The tolerances for the rings with interlocking parts are too tight, at 0.15mm. I need to bump them back up to 0.20-0.25mm for a looser/easier fit. As it is, these prints will need a bit of shaving to properly fit together.

* I’m really pleased with the shapes and overall look of the EMERALD DAWN and the Gardner.

* Somehow, something went wrong with the V1. I need to double-check the source file I sent to be printed, but it appears that I somehow sent in the 23mm disc and related parts, but the 22mm variant band. So, they don’t fit together.


These are just my initial impressions. Once I have more time to examine and handle them, we’ll see how things go. That being said, I seem to have lost the Sinestro Corps ring’s top cap in the nooks and crannies of my couch. I may have it reprinted, if it doesn’t turn up. I’ll also look into the V1, and maybe also order a few other tweaked parts, like a REBIRTH band that’s a bit wider.

 

[Gregatron]

Started making modifications. Here’s the REBIRTH as it has been (left), with a 6mm shank, and now with a 7mm shank (right). Just a little more material along the band to make the ring a bit more robust.


Again, I need time to really examine the test prints. I may stick with what I have, or I may go with the beefier look. It’s a subtle thing, but it does affect the overall look and feel.

 

[Gregatron]

As it stands, I may not even go go the trouble of painting most of the rings and casting the resin inserts for these test prints. I think I'm just gonna bite the bullet, make some more tweaks (especially in regards to the part tolerances), and place a new, smaller order for those designs needing extra TLC (V1, V2, REBIRTH, in particular).

 

[Gregatron]

Tinkering. For this round of changes, I’ve stuck with 7mm shanks as the baseline, which has a trickle-down effect in terms of the overall look of the bands. Wondering whether I should up that to 8mm.

Aesthetically, I don’t have a problem with the relatively dainty test prints I just received, but I just feel that the designs as presented in the comics are a little chunkier.


The symbols on the V2 and V3 are now 23mm instead of 22mm, and their heights have been reduced from 3.5mm to an even 3.0. These tweaks all counterbalance each other nicely.

It’s sort of amazing how much of a difference even 1mm can make, in regards to the overall look. Here’s the V2 in 22/23/24mm flavors. The last test print from a few months ago was 24mm. The newest one is 22mm, and, as noted, looks a bit too small and dainty. Maybe 23mm is the magic number.

 

[Gregatron]

A few more tweaks (right). I think this is just about on-point for the next test print. Just a bit more robust without losing the sleekness of the overall design.

 

[Gregatron]

Tweaking the EMERALD DAWN. Now with a 7mm shank, and a slightly more robust and improved shape (right).

More importantly, however, I may have solved a nagging problem. Due to the nature of this design, getting the separate symbol-piece to properly interlock with the ring itself has been tricky. Also, a concern has been how to get the symbol to sit at the right height (with the face of the symbol properly flush with the inner edge of the circular bevel part on top of the band). As previously designed, the symbol would seat inside the resin insert, and then the two alignment posts on the bottom of the symbol would plug into the ring, allowing it to sit at the correct height.

However, there’s only so much space inside the bevel-socket, and so the holes for the symbol’s pegs to seat into were very shallow. Well, I came up with the idea of two raised alignment tubes on the inside of the ring. This will allow the symbol to properly seat inside the bezel-socket. Also, the bottom of the symbol will be supported by the tops of the tubes so that the symbol sits at exactly the correct height, with the resin insert sandwiched between the symbol and the ring, but making contact only with the symbol and the inner edge of the bezel. All of this will provide better structural integrity and ensure a proper fit.

 

[Gregatron]

Modified the 22mm V1 variant to have the 7mm shank and the same alignment tab system as the EMERALD DAWN.

 

[Gregatron]

Meanwhile, I painted the new test prints. I also painted the resin insert masters lime green and just glued them in, instead of bothering to mold and cast them. I only had one master printed for the V2/V3 gem, so I installed it in the V2.

The tolerances are indeed just slightly too tight on these parts. I really had to force the EMERALD DAWN insert into place, and it still didn’t properly seat inside the bezel-socket.

Loosening the the tolerances up, combined with the new alignment system for the ED and V1, should make things easier.

 

[Gregatron]

Subtle REBIRTH tweaks. Still playing with the band profile shape/thickness. Also again considering reducing the height of the disc from 3mm (right) to 2.5mm (left). As I’ve noted before, the artwork varies wildly, in terms of the disc height.

This particular design is most definitely in the home stretch, though. About the only things left to button up are the aforementioned details.

I also embiggened the Gleason V2 design to accommodate a 23mm symbol-piece, matching the 23mm V2 I’d previously made. As noted, calibrating the symbol-piece size has been tricky business. 22mm seems a bit too small, and 24mm maybe too big, which logically means that 23mm will hopefully be just right. Or so Goldilocks says.


I have to say, this Gleason version has really grown on me. I may have it printed in the next batch.

 

[Gregatron]

It really is remarkable how a very slight tweak can change the overall look. As I’m now leaning toward a 2.5mm disc on the REBIRTH, the model looked a bit…squashed without that extra 0.50mm. Adding back that 0.50mm to the top of the band (in-between the finger-hole and the edge that joins with the bottom of the disc) restores the ring to the height it had previously, while also retaining the sleeker disc.

Old on left, new on right.

And, on the right, we have a variant with a full 1mm added to the top of the band. TOO tall, now? I dunno.

 

[Gregatron]

Opening up a can of worms, here.


Figured I might as well model the other most notable modern-style ring along with the REBIRTH and Gleason’s V2: The tri-band style.

As far as I can tell (and more research is needed), this version began with the DC Direct toy and prop replicas. It was essentially the standard V2 as worn by Kyle Rayner at that time, but with a triple-band.

Later, when Ethan Van Sciver came aboard to drawn the REBIRTH miniseries, he was determined to keep the rings consistent from character to character as well as with the licensed products. So, he drew Kyle wearing the triple-band, basing it upon the DC Direct version. The other characters who traditionally wore V2 rings (such as Guy Gardner and Kilowog) now also wore this style (although other artists working on other books, such as Patrick Gleason in GREEN LANTERN CORPS, did not adhere to this consistency).

There’s a LOT of variance, here, even looking at just Van Sciver’s renditions. The design sometimes has a tapered band, sometimes a barrel. Sometimes the symbol-piece extends past the edges of the band, and sometimes it’s flush. Sometimes the symbol sits on top of the band, and other times it’s integrated (and occasionally with sloping sides which blend into the band, a la the V3). Usually, the design features the standard GL symbol, but sometimes it’s the REBIRTH version.

This is an odd design, to say the least, in that it started out as a V2 variant, but often appears almost like a V3 variant, with the symbol becoming smaller and more and more integrated into the band.


I’ve been playing around with the barrel-type version of the design, not unlike the replica offered by The Ring Foundry. Here are two examples, one with a flat band (and spaces between each section), and one with curvy, organic sections. I’m not even sure if this design would be comfortable/wearable, given that the band is a full 18mm long.

 

[Gregatron]

Went back to the 22mm V2 I had printed in the last test batch, and modified it into a tri-band. As opposed to the barrel look seen above, this is along the lines of the more traditional look of the DC Direct rings and some of Van Sciver’s art.

 

[Gregatron]

…and here’s a variant with the REBIRTH symbol. Both (23mm) have the hockey-puck gem, instead of a domed one, since that seems to be standard for the tri-band designs.

 

[Gregatron]

Playing around with the width and shape of each section of the tri-band.

 

[Gregatron]

Still tweaking to balance out the tri-bands and improve their shapes and proportions.

 

[Gregatron]

EMERALD DAWN tweaks. Improving the curvature of the upper band and the blend between the band and the bezel.

And I threw together a quick display of V2s to try and determine the proper symbol size. From left to right: 22/23/24/25/26mm. 23-24mm is looking pretty good to me. Need to pull out some of the older test prints and compare them physically.

 

[Gregatron]

Created a 24mm version of the Patrick Gleason design just to have the option. Upon comparison, I actually prefer the look and proportions of the 23mm version (left) and its smaller gem, which also appears more comic-accurate.

Meanwhile, it’s been quite a while since I stuck all of the models together. It’s important to keep in mind that I’m not designing each in a vacuum. The goal is to make them all stylistically connected and of a piece, and so it’s necessary to put them all together and bounce them off of each other.

That being said, we have (top row) V1, V3, V2, EMERALD DAWN, (bottom row) REBIRTH, triple-band V2, triple-band with modern symbol, and Gleason V2.

The V2, V3, and Gleason have 23mm symbols. The triple-bands have 24mm symbols. A subtle difference, but it’s good to be able to compare them. As noted, the bigger symbols look more comic-accurate, but the smaller ones are more real-world logical. I also went with the tallest of the REBIRTH variants (as seen upthread) for this comparison, and have revised the V1 to have a 2.5mm tall disc.

 

[publiusr]

It won’t be long before you can put a laser in one

Researchers develop ultraefficient white light laser on a chip

A team of researchers from the University of Twente has made a breakthrough in ultraefficient on-chip supercontinuum generation. The findings, published in the journal Advanced Photonics Research, represent a major step forward in the field of integrated photonics and enable applications in...

phys.org

 

[Gregatron]

Modified the Sinestro ring to match the current REBIRTH model.