My Crafty Things: Steampunk Hat (2015)

For this years EFF theme I've chosen Steampunk. This is a fantasy sub-genre which takes place in the Victorian era were steamturbines, mechanics, gears, copper, leather and brass are the main components.

With such an outfit it is quite regular to wear a hat. Top hats aren't that cheap, but there's a cheap way to create one using crafts foam.

For this projects I used some help from "Lost Wax"on Youtube, who does some more handy tricks with crafts foam.

These are the 2 video's I watched to get an idea on how to make it.
-How to make a Top Hat, DIY Steampunk Fashion Pattern Tutorial
-How to make a Mini Top Hat! Mini Top Hat patter and Steampunk DIY Instructions

First measure up your head (Circumference), then try to figure out the depth/ width of your head. You can cut half an oval out of paper and put in on your head to see if it fits. If it doesn't fit, make it bigger.

With the depth/ width you can make a cross. Use the outer points to draw an oval. With measuring tape you can see if it is close to the circumference of your head.
Cut it out of a piece of paper and see if it will fit.

If it fits: Good, go to the next step, if not; Keep cutting until it does fit.

Make the rim:

I used 2 layers of foam and some thin cardboard in the middle. Looking back, this cardboard might not be necessary.
Glue the cardboard to 1 layer of foam. Trace your head oval and draw another bigger oval around it.

Tip: Do the drawing on paper and trace that on foam. Drawing on foam will create dents and lines, so you want it to be as neat as possible.

Cut out the big oval (Leave the middle one. Now glue it to another sheet of foam and cut the outer line with a cm extra space. This extra bit of foam will be folded over the rim, making a cleaner edge (Watch the video).

Cut out the inner oval and see if it fits. If it doesn't fit:
To small: Make it bigger.
To big: No worries, you can glue an extra band (or more) of foam to the inside making it fit snuggly around your head.

Making the pattern.
-Think about the amount of parts you'd like. I've used 14 parts of which the front part is slightly bigger (and has 2 flaps)
-Measure how tall your want your hat to be.

Calculate the bottom part of the parts by retracting the size of the front piece from the circumference of your head.
F.e.: Your head is 52 cm, the front piece is going to be 6 (making flaps 2cm)
52-6 = 46 cm
Divide 46 by 13 (the amount of parts) = 3,54 cm (It's better to be slightly bigger so make it 3,6 cm; this way you're sure to cover the hole for your head.

Now a bit of a tricky part; the 3 parts of the back have a smaller bottom measurements than the ones on the side; I did this to have a nicer curve all around.; meaning the other parts need to be a tiny bit larger. So instead of 3,6 cm we'll make those 3,8 cm.
3,8cm x 10 = 38cm + 6 cm = 44cm.
52 cm - 44 cm = 8 cm / 3 = 2,7 cm

So our measurements are going to be:
1x Front part: 6 cm
2x Flaps: 2 cm
10x In between parts: 3,8 cm
3x back parts: 2,7 cm

The top part is going to be bigger. You can make that f.e. 5,5 cm
And let's say we want it to be 12 cm tall.
This gets you to a pattern that looks a bit like this:

These are examples of how a pattern could look; these are not on scale!

Tip: Always start with a line straight up or outwards. Never go inwards with your pattern, it will make it look goofy and may not fit your head anymore.

The front part (6cm) get's the same curved line as the back one.

Trim the edges. Because the hat is round and your parts are straight, it looks better to smooth this out.
I folded the top edge over, this isn't necessary but it creates a bit more sturdiness.

Glue your top part to the rim and glue a new oval in place. It's a bit difficult to calculate as there isn't a 100% accurate formula.
You can roughly measure the width/ depth and try to make a nice oval the same way you did with your head + you can measure the circumference.
Try it out with paper. If you think it's correct: Glue some foam to cardboard (you can do without, but I like it to be stronger), cut it out and glue it in place.

Time to add some detail.
There's a lot of things you can do from this point to make it to your liking. I only added some edge straps.
For the rivets I used adhesive pearls from a discount store.

When you're done you paint it all black. I've tried many kinds of paint to see if there's a different, but they all stick to it fine. Spray painting wasn't a favorite. It takes a while to get it covered; it looked more like it got burned or something.
Cheap acrylics are great.

After the black coat I used brown silky shine acrylics and used the dry brush technique to get that old worn leather look. The rivets are highlighted with some gold paint and some black silky shine acrylics are used for the edge straps.

Down below you can see the steps taken: