How a Lovable LABYRINTH Ludo Costume Came to Life

Labyrinth is full of lovable characters, but maybe none more so than Ludo. The giant and gentle beast was rescued by Sarah and later helped her fight Jareth the Goblin King’s army. Paul and Rozanne de Wild, a.k.a. deWild Cosplay, decided to bring Ludo to life to be part of a group cosplay with Paul’s Jareth and a friend’s Sarah. They told Nerdist, “We saw Ludo as a large, fairly simple shaped character who we could make out of foam, and experiment with Smooth-On Rebound 40 for mold making and Smooth-On DragonSkin20 for the face with limited expense.”

The couple learned about cosplay in 2011, and as they’ve always spent time making various projects, they dove into cosplay in 2012 as Hawkeye and Black Widow.

This Ludo build took them just over two months and started with a full scale wire frame. They pieced together the foam shape and continued from there. deWild Cosplay said the most challenging part of the build was visibility and breathability. They didn’t want wearing the costume to be a sauna experience and didn’t want to run into people. They shared how they solved those problems: “Paul wired two computer fans into the mouth which blow fresh air directly onto the wearers face, and four fans into the top for the head forcing and extracting the hot air out. We also put a small reversing camera into one of his eyes and the LCD screen was mounted on the back of the face.”

I don’t know about you, but I desperately want to hug-tackle this Ludo costume. That would not be appropriate though, so instead I’ll admire all the photos and marvel at all the work that went into making it. You can get a look at additional WIP photos below. Then, go keep up with all of deWildCosplay’s work–they’re making a Game of Thrones Drogon costume, FYI–at Facebook and Instagram.

If you specifically want more of the Ludo build, hop into this album.

Do you cosplay or take photographs of cosplayers? Then I want to see your work so we can talk about highlighting your creations in a future Cosplay Friday gallery. If you’re a photographer, maybe we could focus on your images from a single convention. If you’re interested, please get in touch with me at [email protected] and send photos you’d like me to feature–the more high-res the photos, the better. Be sure to provide credits for the cosplayers or photographers for each image because giving credit is good manners–bonus points if you include links to relevant Facebook pages or websites. Though I wish I knew all the nerdy franchises, I don’t, so please let me know who or what is being cosplayed.

Images: Paul and Rozanne de Wild

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