St Edward's Crown Replica (Finished)

[darthvader073]

It's a bit unusual to post real-life replicas here, but I always found it so fascinating I planned to make one for years. Now after seeing The Crown, and Adam Savage's fun build of one, I decided my time has come.

My approach to this is to 3D print the base/frame of the crown in ABS, which will give it sturdiness and enable me to smooth the hell out of it with acetone vapors.
Before smoothing I will bevel the edges with dremel, to give it a bit of hand-made feel and introduce some imperfections.
After smoothing is finished I will gold plate it with leaves, which I prefer over spray painting it.
And finally the fun part will be adding all the gems and beads and velvet and fur... I spent days on Amazon and Aliexpress to find the ones that match original as closely as possible.


Here is the progress so far:
Even though I could buy wonderfully detailed 3D model on CGTrader, I didn't feel like giving away 200$, and being VFX artist myself, I decided to model my own. It's a simple model actually and I used Cinema 4D to model the whole thing.

C4D also has beautiful tool called volume mesher, which enabled me to create ivory-like jewel bases in a matter of minutes!
I found render of detailed model with disassembled parts, so I used AI upscale to get some more details, then used luminance to extract 3D model from the image. Worked like a charm and probably saved me a day or two.

Obviously this will be 1:1 replica, but financial scale will be much much bigger, and I will post it at the end of the build

My printer is currently busy printing AT-AT parts, but after that is done in a few days I'll turn into royal goldsmith

 

[darthvader073]

And here we are, a bit more than a 5 months down the road.

As described above, after the printing was over, and a bit of sanding and acetone smoothing, the Crown was gilded with gold leaves and then properly jewelbashed.

Pictures will tell you everything else:

 

[darthvader073]

And a turntable of the whole thing

 

[BigKitty1011]

That is amazing! Love how accurate it looks to the real thing! (Especially considering how some other 'replicas' have entire teams thrown together to make them look as good as they can and they still can't top this one motivated VFX artist!) The filigree looks great as well! I cannot understate just how good it looks! (What can I say, I like shiny things! )

Although, I must say this here (because I'm a nitpicker, and I swear nobody gets this right). The real St. Edwards crown is not shaped like a circle! It's actually an oval! How do I know this? Take a look at this picture. Notice how different it looks from the front facing pic you used as your overlay? (Yes, that is the real St Edward's crown) Geometry wise, the only possible way this could be is if the crown was ovalic. And think about for a bit. It makes sense it would be right? Our heads are not perfectly round! Just look at any other hat you can get and see what shape it's in. Why would a crown be any different?

Apart from that, any other issues I have are honestly me just being too anal (I can point out the smallest of details like a hawk). And it's honestly fine if you don't want to change it. I just wanted to point it out because, well, it's what I'm good at

If you do feel like revising it however, I think I have something that would help you out. You see, like yourself, I have been creating my own replica of the crown, but I was only going to make it a virtual 3D model. (Here's a link to my 360 render of the crown). It has the possibility of being 3D printed however, so that could be a great way to help save some time! If your interested in hearing/knowing more, just let me know, and I'll be more than happy to send over whatever you may need!

I must again reiterate, this was none the less an excellent job well done! Very, very good!

 

[Aaronu82]

I've pondered doing replicas of St. Edward's crown and the Imperial State Crown ever since I was a kid. This is absolutely beautiful, and I salute you! Phenomenal work!

 

[darthvader073]

Thank you both for your kind words!
Yeah I also saw a bunch of Crown replicas, and most of them are only giving the impression of the real crown, but once you start looking at the details it just looks like some other european crown that resembles it.

I think I wouldn't finish the Imperial State Crown in a lifetime due to all the jewels encrusted into it!

 

[Skywalker073]

This is stunning! What a piece of art! I am looking for a 3d printable file of St. Edward's crown to have made as a Christmas gift and haven't been able to find one with any sort of accuracy. Just wondering if you would be willing to share the file you used? If so, could you please contact me at carrie.blinkofaneye@gmail.com
Thank you

 

[Magnoli Props]

I love the gold leaf application here, very nice finish! Thanks for sharing.

 

[flipg520]

Hey man, this is amazing!!! I did a replica out of foam (based on the less accurate version of the crown from Hamilton that cam out pretty good all things considered. I want to do a more detailed replica though. If you might be willing to share the file you used to make the crown I would be interested. You have by far the best version I have seen out there! If you could email me I would appreciate it. Flipg520@gmail.com

 

[RandomName1223]

This is the best replica I have ever seen! I love the details on the Fleur-de-lis. That is what sets your replica apart! I would love to create my own replica. Would you be able to share your files and send them to me. If so, you can contact me at smartalec981@gmail.com . Amazing work man.

 

[alexbailey]

Great build, thanks for sharing