Hi all,
I was watching the extended cut of the movie a few nights ago when my wife mentioned that she would love to have a replica of Killi's Runestone. It's mentioned in one scene when he and Tauriel are flirting after he is captured. The trailer for the movie shows the stone having greater significance later on. I don't really have much experience with stone carving at all but once my wife identified that the stone is labradorite I found one on ebay and did the carving myself. The Weta version that they sell is cheap and plastic judging by the reviews : (
First step was of course buying the stone. I found one on ebay that ended up costing about $15 bucks.
I found a template for the Dwarven runes online. It says "return to me" and was given to Kili by his mother. In photoshop shrunk it down to fit my stone, then printed it out real quick on to a piece of masking tape and stuck it to the stone. I used a small, round carbide bit to slowly start carving out the runes.
Once I had some shallow carving laid down I removed the tape and tried to refine the lines with a slightly larger tapered dremel bit. Lastly I re-polished the inside of the carve lines with some neatsfoot oil to eliminate the rough chalky finish.
The finished product turned out pretty good
The carving could be smoother but it resembles the prop.
I was watching the extended cut of the movie a few nights ago when my wife mentioned that she would love to have a replica of Killi's Runestone. It's mentioned in one scene when he and Tauriel are flirting after he is captured. The trailer for the movie shows the stone having greater significance later on. I don't really have much experience with stone carving at all but once my wife identified that the stone is labradorite I found one on ebay and did the carving myself. The Weta version that they sell is cheap and plastic judging by the reviews : (
First step was of course buying the stone. I found one on ebay that ended up costing about $15 bucks.
I found a template for the Dwarven runes online. It says "return to me" and was given to Kili by his mother. In photoshop shrunk it down to fit my stone, then printed it out real quick on to a piece of masking tape and stuck it to the stone. I used a small, round carbide bit to slowly start carving out the runes.
Once I had some shallow carving laid down I removed the tape and tried to refine the lines with a slightly larger tapered dremel bit. Lastly I re-polished the inside of the carve lines with some neatsfoot oil to eliminate the rough chalky finish.
The finished product turned out pretty good
The carving could be smoother but it resembles the prop.
