Brotherhood of Nod Keyring

"I am the future. The Tiberian Sun has risen!"

                                                  (Command&Conquer: Tiberian Sun; 1999)

Charms have this in common, that they often detach, leaving the split ring as a souvenir. I have dozens of such rings and I bet you also have at least one. It can be used to create your own, unique keyring. In today's tutorial I’m going to use the Brotherhood of Nod logo from the Command & Conquer video game series.

difficulty: medium
estimated time: 45 minutes

You need:

• black and red polymer clay
• a piece of transparent flower plastic wrapping
• split ring
• chain
• a knife with a non-serrated edge
• toothpick
• scissors
• a piece ot stiff paper
• a compass
• pliers
• pencil and ruler
• an oven

Tutorial steps:

1. Draw a circle with a radius of 3 cm on the piece of stiff paper.

2. Without changing the compass’s angle, stick its needle in any point of the circle. Then draw a short arc, so that it intersects with the circle. Stick the needle in the point of intersection and draw the next arc. Repeat till the starting point. You should get 6 such intersections.

3. Join every other intersection to make an equilateral triangle and cut it out.

4. Draw the diagonals – from the vertex to the half of the base and measure 1 cm on them from each vertex. Draw the line passing through each of those points, so that it’s parallel to the opposite side. Then cut out the corners along them.

5. Roll out the piece of the red polymer clay and put it on plastic wrap. Put the template on it and using the knife cut off the redundant amount of the polymer clay. Remove the template.

6. From the black polymer clay form some canes and stick them around the red base of the pendant.

7. Using the toothpick make a small hole, which will be used to attach the chain and split ring after hardening.

8. On the stiff paper draw (or print) a scorpion tail made of seven segments and a venomous stinger and cut it out. Its width and height should not have more than 2.5 cm.

9. Roll out the black clay and put it on the wrapping plastic. Put the tail on it, but inversed – like the mirror image of it. Cut out the redundant part like in step 5 and then remove the template. Take the tail together with the wrapping foil and turn it downward. Stick the tail to the base and gently remove the wrapping plastic. If you have problem with it, warm it with your breath. Any corrections can be made by using the toothpick.

10. Heat the oven to 100°C [212°F] and harden the pendant for 20 minutes. Don’t extend this time to 30 minutes, because it may cause the toxic-gas to release from polymer clay.

11. Join the chain with the split ring and unbend the last link. If it’s too small and you know it won’t reach the hole, you can change its shape (like in the photo) or make a slightly bigger link from a piece of a thick wire.

12. After hardening the pendant, attach the chain using the pliers. And it’s done!

Downloadables:
- Printable version (pdf)

Next week: Post Apocalyptic Clock