Harry Potter Sorting Hat - CON PICS!!!

indiefilmgeek

Sr Member
A local convention contacted me and asked if I could build a Sorting Hat 'puppet' for a charity fundraiser they were doing. As you know I work mostly in hard-surfaces (armor), but I love the charity they were supporting (Transfiguring Adoption). So, I said 'yes' I talked them into ditching the design of the hat just sitting on box with a puppeteer under it, and into a version where the hat could be placed over guest's heads and call out their house assignment (via Bluetooth speaker and a custom app I would write).

With this plan in place, I had one other big decision to make... The physical prop for the movies was made of leather and looked amazing, but it wasn't used during any of the talking shoots, as WB used CGI for all of that. And the look of the CGI hat isn't remotely close to the physical prop. My choice was to attempt to build something that looks most like the talking CGI version of the hat, since that is what most fans are most familiar with.

And since I'm a creature of habit, I started with Pepakura to determine the general shape. From that rough sizing reference, I converted the pep to templates and cut it out of 1" foam padding.

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By cutting the foam edges at angles, I was able to hotglue them together to build the shape of the hat.
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The trickiest part was the face area...
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Next came the decision on material to cover the foam shape. I had ruled out leather, as that simply didn't 'look' like the CGI version of the hat (too shinny). So, I eventually landed on an upholstery fabric that looks as close as I could get to the CGI hat. I cut out material templates and then cut the final fabric and began hot-gluing it down (adding folds as I went.
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As I started to get the top glued down, I also started hand-stitching the fabric seam that will run down the back of the hat.
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Not exactly happy with the arch of the eye-brows, I went back and did a little reshaping with a heat gun and more hotglue.
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Finally satisfied with the top of the hat, I was ready to attempt the brim of the hat.
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This was a major challenge, as I've never built a hat before and had NO idea what to use. I finally found some thick iron-on fabric backing that I did testing with. I eventually went with ONE of these layers (which was plenty stiff for the job).
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Lots of ironing later, and I had the top and bottom materials attached to the backing material. I then cut a very thin piece of the same fabric and pinned down the edging of the brim... NOTE: You WILL bloody your fingers if you hand-stitch this crap!
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Test fit of the top of the hat on the brim!
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To attach the top to the brim (and because I didn't know of any better way to do it), I had left extra material on the bottom side of the brim 'sandwich'. I had cut those into flaps, so I could hotglue the brim to the hat and then fold over those flaps and glue them down so it held the brim in place. I will then hide this ugliness with a liner.
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AND NOW MY FAVORITE PART!!!! Distressing my beautiful creation!!! lol

I started with a couple of the patches. I used a completely different fabric so they would show up well.
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Then hatched at the edge of the brim and roughed it up with scissors and sandpaper. NOTE: always create a test piece just like your final piece that you can try all this out on.
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Then I sewed the ribbon at the base of the hat. This will be distressed as well, and then glued down.
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I also added some rips and obvious repair stitching. Here is a look at final look with all the distressing.
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As soon as it was done, my wife stole it and started wearing around the house... The hat immediately assigned her to Slytherin. :)

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I'll share more pics (and hopefully video) from the event later this month!

Thanks & keep building!
IndieFilmGeek
 
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Re: Harry Potter Sorting Hat - WIP

super cool sorting hat!!!!!!!
you did a good job getting all the pictures together and making the post!
awesome job! :cool
 
Re: Harry Potter Sorting Hat - WIP

Awesome! Are you just going to add a speaker or are you going to try to animate the hat?


My Beats Pill fits into the hat, and I've written a custom android app that allows a user to either select a house (if it's an obvious favorite for the person being sorted) or provide a random selection. And while the hat could be slightly manipulated by the 'presenter' in a way that would make it look like it's mouth is moving, timing it with the audio is VERY tricky. We'll likely just let the audio play.

From what we've heard, the biggest challenge is 'working the crowd'. The kids have fun with this, but an ex-Universal worker I've heard from says that the adults that get sorted into the 'wrong' house can be very upset. So, it will be most important for us to have a volunteer that's 'helping with the cue' and can talk with the folks in line so that the volunteer with the mobile app can hear what house they 'expect' to hear and then trigger the correct one. Sounds like a lot of work, but from what I'm told it's important to do this extra work. :)
 
Re: Harry Potter Sorting Hat - FINISHED!

(y)eek I can practically hear it: "Hmm - - - better be... GRRRRYFFINDORRR!!!"
 
Re: Harry Potter Sorting Hat - CON PICS!

We had a GREAT Fanboy Expo in Knoxville! The sorting hat assigned Hogwarts Houses to nearly 600 fans over 3 days! :D

The sorting was free, but donations were taken for a great charity that supports foster and adoptive families (Transfiguring Adoption). The hat preformed well, but the Sorting Hat Experience as made AMAZING by Darren Fink and Rachael Rathe (from Transfiguring Adoption) who played Hogwart's exchange students who were bringing the "one and only Sorting Hat" across the pond for the summer! They engaged fans with questions about their favorite Hogwarts subjects, best places to study and who might be in the running for House Cup next year. It was SO much fun to be a part of this exciting experience!

MC of the weekend, Darren Fink (and Prefect of Ravenclaw)!
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Some celebrity sortings that happened!

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Definitely Slytherin!

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Hufflepuff (loyal and hardworking)

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Gryffindor!

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Slytherin (ambitious and a need to prove himself)

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Gryffindor

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Hufflepuff (obviously)


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Hermione Granger, Professor McGonagall and Darren!
 
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