Ludo's height

[practicecactus]

well at least you didn't have her burried in the back yard by the dog!
..what am I doing?

 

[SlamPot]

I've always wondered, how tall is Ludo anyway? He seems so massive next to Sarah (Jennifer) but she was pretty young at the time so I'm not sure if I can use her imdb.com height of 5'8" to figure out Ludo's height or not.

I was working in the creature shop when Ludo was made, and even had to wear the costume just once in it's very early stages, because I'm 6 feet tall, about the same size as the main puppeteers who played the part.
The wearer stands almost upright, but the "spine" of the suit passes over his head at the highest point, which is Ludo's shoulders, that adds maybe a foot, maybe two. Ludo looks like he's in a permanent crouch, suggesting immense height if he ever stood up fully, but that could never happen.

Ludo has a complete, hollow, kevlar-and-epoxy exoskeleton within which the puppeteer stands. He only contacts the puppeteer in a few places:
1) Both feet are shoes worn by the puppeteer, which support the knees.
2) The pelvis is carried on the puppeteers back like a rucksack, behind his own pelvis. It supports the spine, which runs over the puppeteer's head.
3) The arms hang from the shoulders on the spine and are self -supporting, but the puppeteer could reach into Ludo's elbows and work the arms. There were hand controls for the fingers.
4) The head was also self-supporting from the spine, and could also be reached into and worked by hand controls. It also had an optional control rig worked by a helmet on the puppeteer's head. I had a small involvement in the design of that rig.

The puppeteer is completely blind, and can see only via a small black-and-white video monitor hanging on his chest.