The best cosplay costumes we saw at London Comic Con in 2016

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Lianna Brinded/Business Insider

This year over 100,000 people attend the Comic Con in London to see their favourite actors, directors and artists in the sci-fi, fantasy and manga world, and to buy memorabilia. 

But the convention is most famous for the people who wear incredible cosplay outfits, or role-playing costumes.

Some are incredibly elaborate and would cost thousands of pounds to create.

The idea is to escape from reality for just one day and pay homage to their favourite TV programmes, movies, comics and popular culture characters.

Here are some of our favourites from this year’s show:

London’s Comic Con is hosted over three days in ExCel Centre in East London.

People of all ages turn up in the thousands dressed as their favourite characters, and manga — comics created in Japan — gave birth to the most popular cosplay ideas.

Many people dress as “kawaii,” which is a term used in Japanese culture to denote the quality of cuteness. Here are three friends from “Love Live! School Idol Festival.”

The manga characters range from the adorable to the deadly. A lot of friends would dress as complementary characters from the same series

It also gives people a chance to play some kick-ass characters with fake weapons.

Characters from Western animated movies also heavily feature, such as Elsa and Hans from Disney’s huge blockbuster “Frozen.”

The character of Emily from Tim Burton’s “Corpse Bride” was also popular.

And some brides brought Viktor from the film too.

And staying with the gothic team, some created immensely elaborate costumes like seen here as an Angel of Death.

But war and action film and computer game related characters were massively popular and incredibly intricate. These soldier costumes from the computer game “Fallout” were heavy duty and the masks even had a voice-altering communications panel inside.

Some cosplay outfits could’ve been lifted straight from the films. One guy had a War Machine costume from the Marvel series “Iron Man.”

Armoured cosplay characters always look stunning because of the level of production it takes.

“Star Wars” outfits are always extremely popular. Here are some snowtroopers.

And here is a storm trooper, Kylo Ren, and famous starfighter lookalike from “Star Wars: A Force Awakens” Poe Dameron.

Here is Ahsoka Tano, a Togruta jedi.

Some people meshed their favourite characters into a unique concoction. On the left, someone melded Darth Vader into a “Warhammer” space marine soldier while a girl on the right combined Harley Quinn with a space marine soldier — both creating over 8 feet high cosplay outfits.

“Space Marines” are impressive to produce due to the iconic large shoulder pads and blocky armour.

Some kept their armour more old-school and created characters from the “World of Warcraft” computer games.

Here are two characters from the “World of Warcraft” computer game standing by the huge pod where Universal Pictures was showing the trailer for the movie adaptation, which is out now.

Computer games are a great birth ground for some seriously elaborate costumes. Here someone is dressed as a motorised-patriot — an automaton that tries to kill you in the game “Bioshock Infinite.”

But classic sci-fi and fantasy films are also popular with the older cosplayer. Here is a family dressed as Predators from the movie and comic book series.

And of course, Aliens from the movie and graphic novel series of the same name were close by.

This year, steampunk — a subgenre of science fiction that incorporates Victoriana and technology that is steam powered and mechanised — had a huge turnout.

Steampunk has been growing as a sci-fi genre over the last few years and every year there is a huge festival in Lincoln, north England.

Most steampunk cosplayers have items that “work.” So for example, this guy’s contraption moved, made noises and looked and felt like a real-life steam powered pack on his back.

But some of the best outfits keep it incredibly simple. This guy, who was struggling a bit with walking, dressed as Baymax from Disney’s “Big Hero 6.”

Some of the most striking outfits didn’t involve a costume, just some paint.

Sometimes the outfits that got the most laughs and pictures were ones that were an in-joke. Here this guy is from a scene from the incredibly popular anime series “Attack on Titan.” He is one of the monsters — Titans — that penetrates a security wall in the series called Wall Rose.

Some people kept it simple from classic cartoons so the whole group of friends could all match. Here, a group dressed as the gang from the 1960s cartoon “Scooby Doo.”

But cosplay is above all meant to be fun. This family were a hit around Comic Con as their simple costumes were perfect for their range of ages — the family of superheroes from “The Incredibles.”

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