Help me with my Life of Brian costume

December 8, 2011 5:46 AM

Help me recreate the headdress of one of the 3 wise men in Life of Brian, the leftmost one in this pic.

For a longer look, here's a video of that scene.

We want to make a similar headdress using easy-to-find and cheap materials. I'm not a very crafty/imaginative person so please give me suggestions on what materials I can use and techniques of assembly (even if they may seem obvious to you). I'm also concerned that the metal parts might be too heavy to stay attached to the hat part so I'm also open to the idea of using a lightweight material and making it look like real metal, but I don't know how to do that.

posted by slashee to Media & Arts (5 answers total)

The first thing I thought of was soda can pull tabs. But you could use most anything and spray it with metallic paint. You could even go all out and get some stainless steel paint used for refrigerators. Or maybe something from an auto part supply shop - touch up paint of some sort.
posted by MexicanYenta at 6:03 AM on December 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

You could connect them to each other with jump rings, which you can find in any crafts store in the jewelry supplies.
posted by MexicanYenta at 6:58 AM on December 8, 2011

And for the top, you could use a kid's sand pail, a plastic flower pot, or one of those cardboard ice buckets that motels use. And a walk around a craft store will probably turn up possibilities for the other decorative bits. Anything you still don't find, I'd go to a hardware store and talk to a clerk there. They can be a good source of knowledge about things most people don't even know exist.

(Sorry for the multiple posts-I was still half asleep when I made the first comment.)
posted by MexicanYenta at 7:04 AM on December 8, 2011

I would take cheapo plastic poker chips and drill two small holes in each, at the "top" and "bottom" and then spray paint them with metallic silver spray paint. I used some recently, and it is quite good for cheap and easy costume purposes. Connect them with jump rings (or even narrow gauge wire used twist-tie style). Fabric-covered bucket or pail or novelty fez for the hat, and there you go.
posted by Rock Steady at 7:09 AM on December 8, 2011

Response by poster: thanks for your suggestions!

if anyone else has more ideas, please feel free to post...
posted by slashee at 5:44 AM on December 9, 2011