Top Hat

If any of you have ever tried doing slash for halloween, on a budget, you'd know how hard it is to find a suitable tophat. that flare at the top, the nice bendy up rim thing, and the conchos, well. i got fed up of searching. so i decided to make my own. with some metal wire and lots of duct tape.

so. i drafted 4 stages

STAGE ONE: Framework



here you can see the wig that dad got from the states [thanks dad!], and the frame of the hat coming to shape. i used 3 rings of wire, started from a base ring, then made 8 slightly bent struts jutting out. it was messy at first, then i added another smaller ring, to hold it in the center. then it started to take shape. the final ring made it rigid, and made it stop looking like a crown. all held together by tape.

here i cheated a little. that styrofoam crown you see was originally meant only for measurement and forming. then i decided to stick the metal 'tube' onto it, turning it into the rim of the hat. how's it look? haha

so i brought all that, the wig, the hat, the accessories, down for friday night starbucks, where we wore it most the night. haha

STAGE 2: Covering



so here i added more tape to the inside, to cover it up in a complete layer, excluding the top. i intend to get black tape, maybe electrical tape to texture the outer layer. so now the outside is sticky and ugly. just wait and see. but first, hat with wig:



so thats where it is right now. tomorrow i'll move on to stage three, texturing and coloring, and then stage 4, final touches.

anyway there's this too:



which was inspired by: