So I've been searching for a screen accurate Narya- the elven ring of fire worn by Gandalf in the LOTR movies. I haven't been able to find anything great out there, and a few threads here from prop makers but those projects either seem to be ongoing or not for sale. So I found 2 cheaper chinese knockoffs on ebay and combined the "gem" from one with the ring from the other, along with modifying the paint job a bit to make it closer to the screen version. I'm more of a prop collector and not really a maker, but this little project was pretty basic so I attempted it and it came out prettt damn close. Pictures below to show you guys:
- Here's the ring I started with. Its pretty accurate, but as you can see the gem itself is pretty ****** and cheap looking, and also way too translucent. It's either glass or hard plastic. It was so light red and clear that when I wore it the gem actually looked pink. It had to go.
- Here's the gem I used. This ring was less accurate to the movies, but it's gem looked closer than the other one, and was a darker and more opaque red that looked more authentic. Definitely still cheap plastic, but closer to the movie prop.
- All I had to do was pry the good gem out of the bad ring, and the bad gem out of the good ring, and combined the good ring and gem. Luckily I had a really tiny flathead screwdriver that came with a pair of sunglasses. Like really micro tiny. The 2 gems looked about the same size so I figured I could just do a 1-for-1 swap. Turns out the good gem was a little too wide for the good ring, bit since it was just some kind of plastic or resin I was able to sand down the sides just a little until it was just thin enough to fit into the good ring's gem cavity. Of course once I superglued the gem in place, I was rudely reminded that superglue can have that weird "crazing" effect and cause that white hazy crud to appear on the object you're gluing. Luckily these knockoffs are so cheap I just got another one, pried the gem out again, and this time used Micro Kristal Klear, which some of you may be familiar with. I had some on hand from a previous project where I ran into this issue. It dries clear without the crazing effect, and that did the trick beautifully. Here's the good gem and ring combined:
-Last step was to color the raised ridge which runs around the gem at the top of the ring silver. There's actually not a ton of reference photos of the actual Narya prop from the films, but the few out there show that the metal ridge encasing the ring cavity is actually a silver color. A lot of the replicas I've seen are all gold. I taped around the ring right under the ridge to try to prevent any excess silver paint getting on the ring itself. Here's the ring taped up for painting:
- For the silver I used a silver leaf paint pen with a needle tip. I just went slowly and made sure not to get any closer to the bottom edge than I needed to. After a few minutes to dry I removed the tape and it was all done! Overall a fun little project, and it actually resulted in a decently accurate prop! Here's the finished piece:
- Here's the ring I started with. Its pretty accurate, but as you can see the gem itself is pretty ****** and cheap looking, and also way too translucent. It's either glass or hard plastic. It was so light red and clear that when I wore it the gem actually looked pink. It had to go.
- Here's the gem I used. This ring was less accurate to the movies, but it's gem looked closer than the other one, and was a darker and more opaque red that looked more authentic. Definitely still cheap plastic, but closer to the movie prop.
- All I had to do was pry the good gem out of the bad ring, and the bad gem out of the good ring, and combined the good ring and gem. Luckily I had a really tiny flathead screwdriver that came with a pair of sunglasses. Like really micro tiny. The 2 gems looked about the same size so I figured I could just do a 1-for-1 swap. Turns out the good gem was a little too wide for the good ring, bit since it was just some kind of plastic or resin I was able to sand down the sides just a little until it was just thin enough to fit into the good ring's gem cavity. Of course once I superglued the gem in place, I was rudely reminded that superglue can have that weird "crazing" effect and cause that white hazy crud to appear on the object you're gluing. Luckily these knockoffs are so cheap I just got another one, pried the gem out again, and this time used Micro Kristal Klear, which some of you may be familiar with. I had some on hand from a previous project where I ran into this issue. It dries clear without the crazing effect, and that did the trick beautifully. Here's the good gem and ring combined:
-Last step was to color the raised ridge which runs around the gem at the top of the ring silver. There's actually not a ton of reference photos of the actual Narya prop from the films, but the few out there show that the metal ridge encasing the ring cavity is actually a silver color. A lot of the replicas I've seen are all gold. I taped around the ring right under the ridge to try to prevent any excess silver paint getting on the ring itself. Here's the ring taped up for painting:
- For the silver I used a silver leaf paint pen with a needle tip. I just went slowly and made sure not to get any closer to the bottom edge than I needed to. After a few minutes to dry I removed the tape and it was all done! Overall a fun little project, and it actually resulted in a decently accurate prop! Here's the finished piece:
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