#beridians

And obvioulsy my first thought was It's Rocky and Adrian!

So I got to work. First I made a Rocky charm for the big project I was cooking up:

(It is an interpretation, okay? I know you have to be very imaginative to get it. I wanted to mix both the book and the movie designs into one but I had the resources I had and this is what came out, but I love him anyway)

But then I indulged myself and made tiny rocky and tiny adrian to put on my shelf and guys... They are just so freaking cute!

I love them so much I might actually cry!

EDIT: It has come to my attention that some size reference would be nice 😅 so I've added some more pics below the cut (including both the Tiny!Grace and charm Grace I showed in the reblogs)

I wanted to make my absolute favourite eridian OCs on Tumblr, known best friends with parental issues: Prism and Cheeto! (By the amazings @sharkfiinn and @problematiccheeto respectively)

I've learned my lesson about long posts, so more rambles and pictures under the cut:

The Beridians tutorial ya'll have been waiting for!

Coming from this post and several after

MATERIALS:

Here's what I use:

Wire (mainly the 0.3mm one)

Pliers (I use all 3 because I have them, but with ones similar to the blue ones, you'd be fine)

Beads (obviously), both seed beads and mineral/rock chip beads

Super glue

Blu tack (extremely optional)

IMPORTANT: My beridians are tiny, but you can definitely make bigger ones if you have bigger beads or rocks, but I'd recommend using a thicker wire then.

STEP 1

Choose/design your eridian (type/s of rock, colors, general shape and size of their carapace, etc)

For today's example I will be making an OC I just came up with while writing this called Lariot (Tutorial spelled backwards, I am not that creative, sorry guys), and it will be blue not sure what the rock I have is, maybe lapis lazuli? with some sharper angles.

STEP 2

Pick a few rock chip beads that you like or think fit well together.

Here are the ones I initially chose for Lairot:

TIP: One of the things I try to keep in mind when choosing my base rocks is the position of the hole. If the holes connect/are close it is much easier to put together.

I think this picture will come back to haunt me, but I don't know how else to describe it

STEP 3

Play around with the rocks until you have a composition you like. Look at the edges of the beads you chose, the curvature, etc. to guide you.

I'd say the final carapace should be between 2 and 6 chips ideally, more than that and it gets tricky to put them together nicely.

You can string a throwaway piece of wire to help you map things out.

TIP: Once I have a clearer idea, I like to use a little bit of blu tack (or something similar) to simulate the final result. It is not a perfect method but it beats trying to hold all the rocks in place, specially when you have more than two.

STEP 4

Decide where you want your arms/legs to be. For this, you can use the holes in the beads but also the spaces between the rocks you've chosen, the cut the wire you'll need, usually 3 or 4 pieces, depending on where you attach it.

This step goes hand in hand with the last, wether I do them together or separately depends a lot on the eridian I am making and the idea I have in my head. Sometimes I add extra rocks that hold the arms or hide the place where they separate.

STEP 5

Put the two last stepts together and glue everything. While some of my beridians could be done without glue, it helps a lot with stability and looks.

After this step you should be left with a rocky center and 5 wires coming out of it (like a creepy thin legged spider)

STEP 6

Choose the beads you want and threat them on one of the wire legs. I usually do between 5 and 10 beads depending on the size of the seed beads and the height and size of the eridian I am making.

To finish the leg; you have three options: For my tiny babies I use the last bead as a stopper, loop the wire arounf it and then wrap the rest just on top.

You could also use my "regular" stopper which consists on making a couple circles with the wire on the pliers and then wrapping the rest just on top. The circles of wire take the place of the bead in the first method.

Lastly, if you are making bigger beridians, you could bend the wire into a claw shape. I don't have pics of it, but you can check out @colors-echo 's beridians.

STEP 7

Rinse and repeat step 6 for the other 4 legs and you're done!

TIP: If there are any of the legs that I want to start from a specific point but the wire is not behaving how I want, I glue the top bead of the leg to the carapace. But be careful when you do this, because if the glue runs down the leg, it loses mobility.

Lairot is finished and...

CONGRATULATIONS! Now you have your very own beridian!

Thanks for reading this long and convoluted tutorial, I hope it's understandable but let me know if you have any questions. And please tag me if you do make any, I would love to see! (and feel free to use my super duper dumb name #beridians 🤣)

Also me: Omg look at the "modular" charm keychain I just finished!

This was actually my first project but then I got distracted by the beridians and I didn't finish it till now. Anyway, let me break it down for you, it's made of 6 different charms:

Rocky and Grace (whom I already posted)

Tau Ceti and Adrian

And the two lobster claw attachments: The Hail Mary (book version) in the Petrova line, and the Save Stars quote with a petrova line/red line of destiny.

And with that you can mix and match as you wish (or put them all together for a convoluted keychain you can't use, like in the first pic)

These are my original ideas and personal favourites:

My comrade, you are a genius.

First, let me apologise, because it has taken me forever to answer you. But the wait might have been worth it, because the reason I waited was so I could finish and show you my first comic!

This is also why I waited so long to properly introduce Lairot, I wanted to do it in comic form.

I hope something like this is what you had in mind. It's not the best thing ever, because I dint't take the time to edit the photos themselves before going in but... I think it's a pretty good first attempt.

I had fun making it, so i ya'll like it, I might make more!

Full comic under the cut!

They have obviously been made with beads because it is apparently all I can do now...

I can't draw but wanted to do more than just post a pic, so I made this with Canva (no AI)

Here is a side by side comparison with my beaded Grace (more or less in scale), and a referenced actual size pic (because I learned my lesson)

And also a 360° view (the colors in the gif suck)

Some more lore and fun facts about Cherie:

I saved your ask so that I could use it to post your beridians once they were done... And they're finally all here!!!!!!

From left to right we have:

Pointe, your dancer OC

Waterfall, I guess our OC, kind of? And adopted child of Pointe and App

Yet another Rocky

Tiger, the diplomat OC by @cupofmaplesyrup

Appalachian, Pointe's ecoscientist partner