Newt's Suitcase & How I Made Mine

** Before we begin, I apologise profusely for the poor attempt at comedy in the thread's title **

This is one of my "holy grails", and with my ever-increasing collection of Potter props, I needed somewhere to store it all, hence my excuse for building Newt Scamander's case!

Once finished I'm planning to use this as a storage box for wands, potions and other Harry Potter/Fantastic Beasts props, with the case itself being as accurate as possible to what we see on screen.

With a complete lack of budget, I won't be using any leather for the case (far too expensive!) Instead, this will be an all-cardboard build (they don't call me the Cardboard King for nothing you know! ) with paper mache to strengthen the case and the exterior painted and weathered to look like leather.

I even added strips of foam to the sides to emulate the folded over leather.


The hinges are 1-1/2" brass butt hinges (very similar, if not the same as, the ones used on the SA case), held on with brass-plated split pins. Screws wouldn't take hold of the cardboard, and the split pins have the same shaped "heads" as whatever was used to hold the hinges on in the film.



For the handle I made a core out of strips of corrugated cardboard and wrapped it in craft foam. After a few adjustments this was attached to the front of the case, with some metal wire to help hold the shape.



What do you guys think?

Newt's Suitcase & How I Made Mine

The paper mache stage is almost halfway complete now, so it won't be long before I can move onto lining the interior of the case and adding the remaining hardware.

The case itself is more or less finished now. All I need to do is create the latches/locks (+ the Muggle-worthy mechanism) and the corner guards.


Here you can see the foam strips I added to the sides to emulate the folded leather on the original prop:


I've almost finished the inside of the lid as well. As you can see I've gone for a custom interior with plenty of pockets to hold all my paper props.


Next up I'll be decorating the main part of the case and adding the finishing touches.

Let me know what you think.