StarCraft’s hydralisk is a massive creature with armored plates and pincers. It’s fearsome in the game, and as it turns out, it’s pretty darn disturbing in real life too. Cosplayer Dabboy made the costume for Otakuthon, and the above video from MKTK1 shows it in action. The way the costume moves is nothing short of impressive. You can see a couple of still photos of the giant costume below.

Dabboy documented the build in a thread at The Replica Prop Forums. It, amazingly, all started with a cardboard structure for the headpiece. Dabboy got the shape right and then covered it with paper mache. When it came time to tackle the body, he divided it into segments to make fluid movement easier. Mobility was an important concern:

Now for the tail, my utlimate goal was to create a snake like tail that can wiggle from side to side as the hydra moves.
I was very inspired by League of Legend’s Cassiopeia’s cosplay by Jerry Polence and decided to use a similar concept.
However, i gave more freedom to my tail by adding elastic straps to my buckle joints and glue them so the buckles stay between each segments of the tails instead of being concealed inside the segment as Jerry did.
Now you may think the buckels will be in plain sight to everyone.
I thought of that and decided to add a “roof” on each segment to cover the buckle (you can see from the above pictures). This allows free movement and conceals pretty well the mechanism under.
I placed a piece of cardboard in each segment to keep its shape sturdy so it flatten out over time.

Two things I did to ease mobility on any type of floor.
First, I added a sheet of plastic under each segment of the tail. As you can see in the picture, I cut 2 slits and inserted the plastic sheet in between in a curved way. This first of all prevent the foam from rubbing against the floor and protects it. Secondly, this minimizes friction during mobilization, and helps the tail follow more smoothly my movement.
Lastly, I added another sheet of plastic under each segment which covers the join that follows it. This acts as a shield for uneven floor or stairs and prevent the edges of the the segment to get stuck in a ridge or on a stair steps.

Read more about the build at The RPF.

Photo by Theorem Productions

Photo by Cute World Photographie