Imbiah Lookout, Sentosa
South, Singapore
October 2014
Merlion Wayfarer was fortunate to visit Madame Tussauds when one of their professional make-up artists was on-hand to touch up Yao Ming's wax figure. Here's what she has to do for each and every wax figure on a daily basis...
Carrying a walkie talkie, she is summoned to "whoever" needs her immediate attention.
Her tools consist of a palette of colour, some brushes, combs and tweezers...
Implanting loose and lost armpit hair with great precision and steady hands...
After the implants, a fine comb is used...
The shorts a bit loose too. No need paiseh here...
Someone seemed to have step on those long laces just now.
Good to touch up on those branded shoes....
Intrigued, she found out about how these amazing wax figures were created...
1. Sitting
Firstly, the sculptors very carefully take hundreds of accurate measurements of the subject with traditional callipers and measuring tapes, along with a library of reference shots depicting the selected pose.
2. Sculpting
Each figure is perfectly sculpted in clay and this is used to create a mould from which the wax figure is created. A whopping 150kg of clay is used in the sculpting process!
3. Moulding
A ‘piece mould’ of the head is made using fine quality plaster to reproduce the surface of the clay, which is then cast into a beeswax and Japan wax mix. Because they are made up of many separate pieces, the head moulds will last a long time. We have plaster piece moulds which are 200 years old, and fresh wax casts can be taken from these originals many times.
4. Pouring
Molten wax, coloured with a dye and heated to a temperature of 165° F. is poured into the mould. The wax is then left to cool for the time it takes for the wax to harden to a 5/8-inch thickness. The surplus liquid wax is then poured away, leaving the hollow wax cast.
5. Removing The Mould
After further cooling for 1½ hours the pieces of the mould are carefully pulled away to reveal the wax head. At this stage the wax surface is interrupted by tiny ridges formed by the joints between each mould section. The sculptor carefully removes these seams. The head still retains wax eyes and these are melted away to make room for the acrylic eyes. The teeth, if showing, are treated in a similar way.
6. Hair Insertion
Expert hairstylists replicate our star's hair right down to the last one. Ethically sourced human hair is inserted strand by strand and then cut to style. It is an incredibly delicate and involved process - taking around 6 weeks to insert a full head of hair!
7. Eyes
Each pair of eyes takes approximately 10 hours to make. At the sitting, stock glass eyes are compared to the sitter’s own, and life-size colour transparencies are taken, so that our eye-making experts can reproduce the exact iris colours. Each eye is painted with watercolours with fine red silk thread used to create the veining lines, and the whole is cast into acrylic.
8. Colouring
The figure is then coloured by a team of make-up artists. 20 different colours are used to recreate lifelike skin tones. 10 layers of oil paints are used to build up layers of colour on the face to give a translucency to the skin tones and a realistic texture and colour. Every freckle, mole, wrinkle and dimple is accurately reproduced!
9. The Finished Figure
Overall, it takes four months of specialist sculpting, moulding and colouring to create a Madame Tussauds wax figure. Each figure costs approximately $300,000!
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