How It's Made: Wax Figures

We can't all rub shoulders with political greats and movie stars,

but for the price of admission to a wax attraction, anyone can mingle with their wax replicas.

These look-alikes aren't much for conversation,

but the likeness can be startling, thanks to a process honed over centuries.

Famous faces come to life in beeswax,

so it's almost like seeing them in the flesh.

But how do they do it?

It often starts with a face-to-face meeting with the subject,

during which they take more than 200 measurements of the face alone,

and still more of the body.

Drawing on those measurements and using photos and additional research,

an artist sculpts a clay body onto a metal skeleton.

This clay sculpture will be used to make a mold.

The head, of course, receives special attention.

They sculpt it in stages, and this takes about six weeks.

To check the symmetry of the sculptured face,

the artist stretches a wire from the temple to the chin.

She measures it from all angles and compares the numbers to measurements of the actual subject.

Every single aspect of the clay face must mirror that of the subject's precisely,

so if it's even slightly off, she makes adjustments.

Here, she redefines the teeth a bit more,

and then she tweaks the hairline.

They're now ready for the next step, the making of the head mold.

The worker paints plaster onto the sculpture in 14 different sections.

This multi-part mold can be easily removed from the clay head once the plaster dries.

After the clay head has been discarded,

they give the reassembled mold a quick rinse.

The wax artist turns the plaster head mold upside down and slots it into the wax bench,

so named because it secures the mold during the wax casting.

They melt blocks of Japanese beeswax and funnel the liquid wax into the neck of the plaster cast.

They let it set for an hour, just long enough for the wax to solidify

and form a thick crust around the inside of the cast.

The artist removes crust at the neck

and pours out the rest of the wax, leaving a hollow wax face inside.

They set it aside for another hour to further solidify.

The wax artist removes a plaster mold and comes face to face with the wax creation.

She examines it thoroughly,

confirming that the detail from the mold has been effectively transferred to the wax

and that the wax face is a dead ringer for the human subject.

The team then casts the wax figure's hands,

and an artist matches the subject's skin tone against a chart.

She mixes paint and dabs the brush in it.

She then strikes her brush with another one, so the paint splatters across the hand.

She blots up the paint to blend it in.

This technique gives the wax a speckled look that mimics human pores.

She paints on knuckles, veins, and distinctive markings to mimic those on the subject's hands.

She gives the nails a manicure to make the hands look identical to the subject's.

In the hands of a skilled artist, these wax hands have come to life.

As a medical glass eye spins,

the artist blots on a very wide pupil first

and then paints the periphery to mimic the person's iris.

Iris color and pattern are unique to the individual,

and the artist replicates those qualities as closely as possible.

She glues red silk threads onto the whites of the eyes to simulate broken blood vessels.

It's another touch of realism.

They slot the eyes into sockets in the wax head.

Then, the wax figure is ready for its hair,

actual human hair matched to the subject's.

They pierce the wax with a hot needle to insert each hair individually.

The wax melts and closes around the hair.

This process can take four weeks.

They also plug in brows and lashes

and then brush on paint like makeup.

With his face on, the wax figure now looks true to life.

Once completed, wax figures get movie-star treatment.

Their hair is washed and styled regularly,

and their clothing is routinely dry cleaned.

After all, even wax versions of famous people have to keep up appearances.