The Illustration Era: Labubu Before Vinyl
Before Labubu existed as a three-dimensional figure, the character lived in Kasing Lung's illustrations — a flatter, more gestural version of the creature we know today. In these early drawings, Labubu's proportions varied more freely from piece to piece: sometimes taller and more elongated, sometimes rounder and more compact. The signature teeth were present from very early on, but the framing around them — the ear shape, the eye expression, the limb articulation — shifted considerably as Lung explored what the character could do.
The illustration-era Labubu has a looser, more spontaneous energy than the production figures. You can see Lung thinking through the character in real time, testing how different body stances communicate different emotional states. A Labubu standing upright feels curious; one crouching looks mischievous; one seen from behind suggests shyness. This vocabulary of poses became the foundation for how three-dimensional editions would later be staged.
Collectors who discover these original illustrations often describe them as a more 'raw' version of the character — less polished, but with an immediacy that the production figures sometimes trade away in favor of cleaner surfaces. Both versions have their advocates, and both illuminate different aspects of what Labubu is.
First Vinyl Generations: Translation Challenges
When Labubu first moved into vinyl production, the design team faced the fundamental challenge of translating a hand-drawn character into a medium that requires precise engineering. Curves that look natural in illustration need to be specified exactly for mold-making; textures that a brush creates in seconds need to be planned months in advance as surface treatments. The earliest vinyl Labubu figures are notable for how faithfully they captured Lung's line quality — the slightly uneven, organic feel of hand-drawn edges — in a mass-produced form.
The ear proportions in the first vinyl generations were slightly different from what became standard — longer relative to the head, creating a more 'wild' silhouette. Over subsequent series, the ears were refined to their current proportions, which balance expressiveness with a cleaner overall shape. These early variations are now highly sought after by completionist collectors precisely because they represent a moment in the character's evolution.
Paint application in early editions often featured more handwork variation than later series, meaning no two figures were exactly identical. While this created quality control challenges, it also gave early pieces a handcrafted quality that collectors who acquired them cherish. The shift toward more consistent paint application in later generations reflects both manufacturing improvements and the growing scale of production.
The Pop Mart Era: Standardization and Explosion
The partnership with Pop Mart marked a significant shift in both the scale and the design systematization of Labubu. Pop Mart's production infrastructure required more precise design specifications, which in turn led to more clearly defined 'canonical' proportions for the character. The Labubu that most collectors know today — the specific ratio of head to body, the exact curve of the teeth, the standardized ear shape — was largely locked in during this period.
Paradoxically, standardization enabled rather than constrained creative variety. With a stable base design, the creative energy could go entirely into colorways, surface treatments, and thematic costumes. The blind box format — where each box in a series contains a random figure from a defined set — made this variety into a game, and the game drove enormous collector engagement. The design infrastructure built during standardization became the canvas for endless expressive variation.
This era also saw Labubu's global expansion, with the character resonating in markets from Southeast Asia to Europe to North America. The design's cross-cultural accessibility — the way it could read as a forest spirit, a street character, a fashion accessory — proved to be a genuine universality, not just a hope. Different markets emphasized different aspects of the character, and the design was flexible enough to hold all those readings at once.
Today's Editions: Refinement and Expression
Current Labubu editions represent a design language at peak maturity. The proportions are settled, the production quality is at its highest, and the creative range of what can be done within the design system is wider than ever. Contemporary editions like the four Voxelyo figures — Duck Bubu, Snow Wing Bubu, Angel Bubu, and Pink Fang Bubu — demonstrate how much expressive range the core design can hold: each feels distinctly different in mood and visual register while remaining unmistakably the same character.
The most interesting design evolution happening right now is at the surface level — paint techniques, material finishes, and thematic layering. Glitter finishes, matte-meets-gloss contrasts, fabric costume elements on some special editions — these details push the figure format toward something closer to sculpture while remaining accessible to casual collectors.
Looking at the full timeline from Lung's earliest sketches to today's production figures, what's striking is how consistent the core character DNA has been. The teeth, the ears, the wide expressive eyes — these have evolved but never been abandoned. Labubu is proof that a strong initial character concept, intelligently evolved, can sustain decades of collector interest without ever feeling stale.