Making of The Rat King Earrings

The artistic process I go through while designing and making jewelry varies from piece to piece. I almost never have a permanent final vision that I want to fulfill. Sometimes I have elements I want to encorporate and that I know. 

When I started making The Rat King Earrings, I knew I wanted to make a piece that worked with my RATS Collection. I had already made a necklace of a Rat King:

and I wanted something similar but not identical. One day when I was making a Rat King Necklace, I accidentally broke off the top rat . I hate waste, so I was considering what I could do with the broken piece. I thought it could make a great earring. So I fashioned it into one (see A below). Not sure it was working, I hung the existing rat king necklace charm on an earring to compare shapes. 

 
The answer wound up being neither. I wanted to keep the traditional round spreading of the Rat King image but it definitely needed a different connection at the top. To resolve this, I added an extra rat tail to form the hoop and connection in between the top two rats. Here is the model I am working on in wax currently:

 
Looking forward to making the mold and the first metal casting soon!! Stay tuned for link to final piece once I've listed them.