How Mt. Elbert, Wolf-Dogs, and a Green Meteor Became a Custom Engraved Ring
Much of what we do at Honest Hands is build fully custom rings that are meaningful to people. Sometimes that meaning comes from a material, like sand from a favorite beach or heirloom gold. Other times, it’s an engraving that captures a specific place or meaningful words. For Gerard, it was both.
Gerard lives in southern Colorado and wanted a ring that told the story of his life out there. The mountains. The wildlife. And most importantly, his dogs. He’s got German Shepherd and Timber Wolf hybrids, and getting their silhouette right was the most important part of the design to him. He also wanted Mt. Elbert, the highest peak in Colorado, plus moose, lynx, bear, and an eagle worked into the scene.
But here’s the detail that really made this ring special. Gerard mentioned he’s seen some jaw-dropping green meteors in the night sky. He asked if we could engrave the sparks of a meteor and set a small emerald right at the center. The final vision was a whole Colorado wilderness scene wrapping around the ring, and then this little flash of green catching the light. That’s the kind of stuff we love figuring out how to do.
We started the design work in CAD and Adobe Illustrator, scaling and positioning all elements to fit on an 18k gold band. There’s a lot that goes into making a wraparound scene like this look right. Mt. Elbert anchors it, then you’ve got the treeline, the wildlife silhouettes, and the meteor with its spark trail. Everything had to be balanced so the ring didn’t feel too crowded.
The wolf-dog custom silhouette took some extra attention. Gerard didn’t want just a generic wolf shape. He wanted something that looked like his dogs, their specific build and posture. So we worked closely with Gerard on the design until we got it right.
Once the artwork was finalized, we moved to our laser engraver. The nice thing about this machine is that you can do a lot with it. For a ring like Gerard’s with so many different elements, the laser gave us fine line control across the mountain ridges, the individual pine trees, and the animal silhouettes. It also maintained consistent depth across the varied imagery, so the mountains read the same as the wildlife forms. We achieved clean transitions between the landscape and the animals, with nothing looking muddy or blurred. When you’re working with this much detail on a curved surface, that precision matters.
The tricky part was the emerald. We had to engrave the entire meteor trail leading up to where the stone would be placed. Then we flush set the emerald into that exact spot. If anything went wrong during the setting, we’d have to start the whole ring over from scratch. The emerald had to sit right where the engraved sparks were pointing, as if it were the actual meteor burning through the sky.
It worked out. The stone sits flush against the gold and aligns exactly with the engraved trail behind it.
The finished ring has everything Gerard was looking for. Mt. Elbert. His dogs. The wildlife he sees around his part of Colorado. And that green meteor streaking overhead. It’s a snapshot of his perfect world, wrapped around his finger in 18k gold.
This is the kind of project we really enjoy. Someone comes to us with a vision that’s specific to their life, and we figure out how to make it work. That’s what custom rings are about.
If you’ve got an idea for a ring, whether it’s a place, an animal, or something else entirely, reach out and let’s talk about it. We’re always up for a challenge.
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