After the successful release of "Harbinger of Death" - Crixus Crow Skulls Choker at our Etsy store SilverLabCreations in August 2012, we've had a special order from our former customer Alain Bergeronto construct the piece from the God's of the Arena season of Spartacus - the Champion of Arena Gannicus's Celtic Dragon Champion Necklace.
Our response was positive and we had adressed some fans (and our former customers) with a request to help us gather image references for the necklace. The response was overwhelming and very soon we had enough material to make a good study of smallest details of the necklace as well as their relation to the story in the series.At first glance the task didn't seem too difficult. The real tricky part was deciding what parts we should cut the dragon into for further assemblance. Luckily our team has had enough experience with much more intricate jewelry pieces before and the solution was found fast.We've devided the body of the dragon into 5 separate pieces that would create a shiny dragon scales and one solid piece for it's head and man's figure. The body was designed in such way so it was flexible and could be bent by hand when the entire necklace was ready.Now we had to think about one of the most important parts of the necklace - its closure. It was clear that in order to make the necklace's construction more solid we should take advantage of the joint of the dragon and the bird heads, but how would the crows head connect to the dragon?The easy solution was to add small ring-closure to both sides and tuck them into the birds beak, but that was not appealing to us aesthetically, regarding the necklace's history and celtic dragon motives. The closure would look out of its place and time being too modern for the gladiator style necklace. The idea to create a tongue for the dragon and use it as a hook for the opening between the crows beaks came from studying the ancient celtic and scandinavian jewelry motives with its intricate curves and hook closures. The tongue hook looked quite natural on the necklace so the only thing left was adjusting the correct angle of the curve on it for the dragon to sit correctly on the neck.Nevertheless we had our share of trial and error while making it. We had to re-model, print & cast the tongue model twice to get the desired curve on the dragon head.Finally a 925* sterling silver Gannicus celtic dragon necklace of approximately 79 gr was set on the leather bolo cord and ready to ship to its rightful owner - a former customer of ours who showed incredible trust and patience throughout all the process and we'd like to thank him for his proposal and thus contribution to the creation of Gannicus Celtic Dragon necklace!It was important for us to get the feedback on the necklace to make further optimisations of it's design, so we carefully examined the answers to the questionnaire we sent with the necklace to Alain and made some vital changes to the model later on.Here we'd like to say a special thank you to Alain Bergeron for his great cooperation throughout the entire process of making the necklace and help with feedback for the necessary modifications to necklace. We are truely happy to have him as a customer and hope that both necklaces will bring him all the luck and joy he deserves.We've asked Alain to tell us a bit more about his experience with the show characters and the necklaces he aquired from our workshop and here is what he shared with us:
- Alain, so far you own two necklaces - both are replicas from Spartacus tv show worn by Crixus and Gannicus, one of them was custom made for you so we think it'ss safe to say you've definitely went further than most of fans to have them. Could you describe what do they mean to you personally? In what way do you get inspired by the heroes of the show and their values and opinions of life, how do they reflect your own beliefs?I'm a real big fan of Spartacus and my two favorite characters are Crixus and Gannicus. Having these necklaces and wearing them is a way to wear and show some respect to these warriors and their values. They are both Gauls and I'm french. They're my ancestors and Gauls were powerful warriors. I'm proud of my ancestors. I wear and show a part of my origins.Both men are men of heart. They follow their heart no matter how in danger or trouble they get in. I'm a man of heart too. Both are fearless but show it very differently. Crixus is standing like a rock and facing everything. He risked his life to get his wife back and was ready to kill the entire world for. Definitely a thing I'll do for my loved one. Beside Gannicus is always smiling and laughing facing danger and get things how they come and mastered them. And Gannicus also offered his life at the end to be sure that the woman he loves will survive. They're strong, fearless and lived following their heart and they're Gauls. - We believe both necklaces are very nice, but do you have a favorite yourself?I love them both, they're both amazing. But I have a lil preference for the Crixus one cause I've been looking for it for such a long time since the first season of Spartacus that I gave up on finding it. And shortly after being with my so loved girlfriend she found me a link to your shop on Etsy and I ordered it. Cause I've looking so much to find it and she helped me to find it as we were together from a very short time my Crixus one as my preference.-- Do you get complimented on the necklace at all? What was the most memorable reaction of friends or people around you on the necklace so far? Would you recommend our workshop to a friend looking for something custom-made?- Everybody loves my necklaces. They're originals, they don't look like what people are wearing these days. True fans recognize them instantly and have complimented me on having them. Even people who don't know the show find them amazing.I highly recommend your workshop to anyone who need real nice and special custom-made jewelry. From pictures and talking through mails you created my amazing Gannicus necklace. You're amazing, talented and very serious artist.
If you have any questions regarding our produsct or services please do not hesitate to contact us at any time via our mail: info@silverlab.gr or through the contact form of our website!