Help with Quidditch pads?

[lilappleblossom]

Hello everyone. My first real post here, I really hope I'm in the right place.

Anyway, my friends and I are planning a group Harry Potter costume outing to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Orlando some time soon and we're all working on costumes for it. Mine will be a pro Quidditch player, a beater from the Ballycastle Bats team. Colors are black and red.

What I really need help on right now are the Quidditch pads.

Here is a reference, it seems someone made them out of tape. Which I am totally fine with but I'm also looking to make proper fabric ones because I'd like to use them multiple times.

These are the actual pads from the movie, I believe I'll be making mine black bordered in red, to match the team colors. Rather than the traditional brown.

Now my issue is I went to my local hobby/craft stores, all of them, and looked for fabric that would work. The backing wasn't hard to find, white canvas that I imagine I'll be able to dye the red that I need.

But the only leather-like material I could find that could work was $17.99 a yard. This is my first ever costuming project so I'm not entirely willing to drop that much money on materials when I'm not 100% sure they'll work.

Is there another fabric I can use? Something cheaper that maybe I can find online? What other places should I be looking for materials? We're doing all of our props and stuff in Warbla (Sp?) and my friends are pretty confident we can figure that out. But since I'm going to be the only Quidditch player, I'm on my own for my creating. So any help that you could give at all would be amazing for a newbie like me. I may end up making them out of tape for the first go-round if I can't find anything that will work but I figured I'd come here first and reach out to the community here. Thank you so much for the help. I look forward to learning from this community.

 

[DamnItSasha]

For fake leather, it does tend to be that price range, but you can make craft foam look like leather. There are tons of tutorials on youtube for doing that. Or you could always do your pads out of canvas and weather them a lot. In the big wide wizarding world, I'm sure there are some teams that use canvas padding.

 

[SMP Designs]

You can try using a poly fabric such as ripstop and then coat it with a product called Sculpt or Coat (basically, a really thick white glue) or other similar material. When primed and painted with NuLife shoe paint it had the relative look and texture of leather. Plus, it's flexible (to a point) and will not crack.

The post above about craft foam is a good idea.

I live in Atlanta and there's a shop here where I get great faux leathers for about $5/yd. PM me if you want more info or if you want me to pick some up for you and send it to you.

 

[lilappleblossom]

That's awesome, guys. I'll check out the options you gave, see which ones will work the best. Thank you so much for your suggestions!

 

[wolfiejinn]

When I was making mine (unfinished) I went to the scrap area for the vinyl furniture materials at places like Joanne's or Hancock Fabrics and got more than what I need for like $10. Variety of colors usually since they are made to recover chairs and whatnot. Sturdy, somewhat flexible. My $100 Brother's sewing machine with a heavier needle had no problems. Pad them on the back. I know the Leaky Cauldron used to have tutorials. Check the Quidditch websites for the college teams as well. They will probably be more than willing to give pointers.

 

[DamnItSasha]

OH, Wolfiejinn just reminded me! Go dumpster diving! Look for old chairs and couches you can steal the leather off of! Or go to the thrift store and see if you can find a cheap leather coat. Depends on your area, though. In Atlanta I could find leather coats cheap, but in Chicago even fake leather ones are going to be at least $20.

 

[lilappleblossom]

I'm in the middle of the bum end of nowhere in Florida. The prices on damn near everything in thrifts stores range from steals to 'I can buy this new for the same price' so I'll have to hunt a bit to find what I need but I'll give it a go. I've wanted to get into dumpster diving for a long time but I'm really scared of getting fined/arrested. There are a lot of bored cops and old people that will rat you out for some form of excitement in their lives where I am so I've put up trying it.