Ok, thanks for the tips. You're right about the event part though, but you could probably add something like this a bit later after you get the new server under a bit more control.
Here, I've added some more shading and saturated the colors a bit more, what else could it improve on?

I think that it needs something on one of the sides so that you cant tell which side of the hat your looking at (it looks kind of funny in-game when you turn around and your hat doesn't change)
P.S. Could someone provide me with a GIMP download for windows vista, I've searched all over for a working link and couldn't find one.