Over the course of more than 50 books in the Horus Heresy and Siege of Terra series, Horus sought to walk upon humanity’s homeworld. Thanks to the incredible cosplay of David Roth, the Warmaster has finally achieved his goal! We caught up with David after the Horus Heresy Open Day.
David: It all started with an invitation to bring cosplay to the Warhammer World 25th anniversary event.
I took my human-scale corrupted Khârn the Betrayer, and my cosplay friends suggested I bring that to the upcoming Warhammer: The Horus Heresy event. I knew, however, that at least one loyalist Primarch – Rogal Dorn, the Praetorian of Terra – would be there, which brought up an intriguing possibility. To my knowledge, no one had ever cosplayed as Horus before.
With a month until the event, I started cannibalising previous costumes. I tore up my old Terminator armour, took the arms from my Night Lords Raptor and a pneumatic hand from my Adeptus Mechanicus, and started piecing things together. I soon realised I would need more EVA foam, and that some things needed to be built from scratch, so I made an urgent call and soon had several rolls dropped off with contact cement and hundreds of hot glue sticks.
Poring over all the differing versions of Horus from the official art, miniatures and the recent cinematic trailer, I roped in my partner Angel and her cutting machine to be able to accurately construct leather, fabric, and intricate craft foam details.
I built solid blocks in the feet (abstaining from my usual stilts) to give me a height of about eight feet, and the shoulders had a width of five feet across! A wolfskin effect rug finished off the body, and I used a 3D printed head with glass eyes to get across the majesty of the Warmaster’s visage.
Worldbreaker was built from foam around a PVC pipe and was pretty simple, but the Talon of Horus was more complex. It went through several test versions with 3D printed working parts and a belt of bolt shells. The final version was stripped down to foam parts only, in order to reduce the massive weight of the overall suit. I painted it all by hand – lots of black, gold, and burning red eyes, and I finished it off just before I packed it into the car the night before the Open Day.
The final hurdle was driving to Nottingham from Devon with every square inch of my car filled with heretical foam-built armour and weaponry. My first full test wearing the kit was an hour before the event opened, which was nerve-wracking – but it worked, and the reactions were worth it.
Thanks, David! Think you can get Horus to Terra? Grab the Warhammer: The Horus Heresy boxed set and start planning your galactic conquest now.
