Nauglamír

MithLuin

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Staff member
We are (finally!) making the Nauglamír in Season 6. It is crafted by Zirak of Nogrod in Nargothrond during Episode 1 as a commission for Finrod.

The Nauglamír is a golden necklace set with 'countless' gems from Valinor. Here is an image of it created by Ted Nasmith:

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Naturally, this particular design contains the silmaril as its centerpiece. Our challenge will be to design a necklace that looks beautiful and is a masterpiece of its craft, but has 'room' for the addition of the silmaril later. It is possible to design it with another central gem that can be 'swapped' for the silmaril, but I think it should be designed with no central gem, and then modified to incorporate the silmaril as a central jewel later.

The Nauglamir is described as a 'carcanet', so it should have a collar element to the design. It should also be graceful, sitting lightly on the wearer's neck. We will see this necklace on Finrod, Thingol, and later Lúthien.

I think that a collar that is wider at the front and narrower at the sides can be designed to lay nicely on the necks of multiple people without looking like a choke collar. Something like this:
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The cut out shapes lend to the intricacy of the design, but also cut down on the weight of the piece. Naturally, no elephants in our design - probably vines and flowers with gems set in them, like swarovski crystals. Some sort of fine gold filigree.

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To encourage an assymetrical design, I want to use the night sky as a template for the 'countless gems' The necklace should be dripping with gems, but not it a way where they get tangled or look messy. They should be arranged carefully to form a pattern. Why not a pattern of the Valacirca, the Sickle of the Valar?

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This is the portion of the sky where the Big Dipper wheels around the fixed north star. At a minimum, I would want those 8 stars in this necklace. A portion of Draco and the Little Dipper are optional, if they would fit in the design. Same with Arcturus. Or the focus could be on the Ursa Major moving group, a cluster of stars all roughly formed together about 300 million years ago that are 80 lightyears away from us. These 'scattered' stars will create quite a bit of assymetry, and a challenge in the design.

See the three dots on the bottom of these drop pendants? These type of settings could be used to have additional chain to link to additional jewels.
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Chains could be draped in a way to allow gems to hang at different heights, thus recreating the night sky.

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I am fine with a variety of colors in the gems of the necklace - the more colorful, the better, probably. I do want the design to make the stars of the Big Dipper stand out, so those should probably all be gems of the same color, whereas the 'scattered' background stars can be any color.
 
Nauglamír by Kathrin:

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Nauglamir concept art by me (why yes, I did take a photo of a necklace made from big stones in a jewelry store in Banff and then scribble over it in Paint):
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Not a full design - simply showing how the stones that represent the stars could be incorporated into a larger design, rather than being forced to dangle from a main collar (like in the image below).

Nauglamir sketch 1.png

The decision is definitely to have a design going fully over the shoulders and to the back, as in Kathrin's. Not a necklace. More chain of office:

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But with a collar component, so as to qualify as a 'carcanet'

Example from Queen Jane Seymour of England:

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Example from Final Fantasy 7:
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In the sense that there will be a collar component and a necklace component, yes. But the weight needs to be balanced over the shoulders, not forward-heavy. An important part of the Nauglamír design is how lightly it sits on wearer.
 
Came across this lovely piece of jewelry, and wanted to toss it in for inspiration:

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The image was labeled as "Chanel Celeste brooch, c 1932"
Makes sense that this would be Art Nouveau, but I really like how the constelations are incorporated into the design.
 
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