Wax on, wax off: Visiting Madame Tussauds Hollywood Wax Museum

I visited the Madame Tussauds Wax Museum in Hollywood. Very impressive! Highly recommended.
You can read my review of Madame Tussauds Hollywood on Yelp.

Above is my sketch of Madame Marie Tussaud (1761-1850). She was big back in the 18th Century, trained in the art of wax sculpting. She apparently was a housekeeper of Doctor Philippe Curtius (1741-1794), a physician who made wax body organs for educational studies (since using real human organs wasn't encouraged at the time). She learned the trade from the said doctor, who also made portraits in wax. The thing about wax is that it works very well with paint, and how the light hits on its translucency makes it look very lifelike, like human skin. A face would first be sculpted in clay, then a mold would be made with plaster. Afterwards, wax would be poured into the mold, and turned into a wax sculpture.

Here is a wax sculpture of Madame Tussaud,

holding a wax sculpture.

For more information on her, here's a BBC documentary on the history of Madame Tussaud which was pretty interesting:

This one is from the Discovery Channel to talk about how her waxwork is done in the modern times:

So, this was the first time visiting this museum. I must admit I haven't really been to a wax museum in a long time. The last good one I remember is the one from the 80's called Movieland Wax Museum which has closed down for a long time. To their credit, Movieland had amazing sets, even if the sculptures weren't as good as Tussauds. The wax sculpting techniques have improved quite a bit since then. It is more lifelike now.

So, this was a good time to do a lot of photo-taking and study the sculptures themselves for my personal reference. Good reference, especially, to use for my Zbrush sculpting projects.

One thing to note about Madame Tussauds Wax Museum--it is most fun if you go with a significant other or with a group of friends. Going alone just wouldn't do it--unless you really enjoy taking selfies. The price of admission is around $30 but you can get a 50% discount from a coupon they pass around on the street on Hollywood.

Now, for the important stuff--Here are some photos I took at the Madame Tussauds Hollywood Museum. It's mostly pictures of myself, which my girlfriend took. I can't post any cutesy photos with her online since she is a University professor and students and faculties are always watching..like Big Brother.

Yeah, I'm a fan.

This screenshot is actually when I was really on

TV with Conan. It's the episode with Zoe Deschanel

West side! Gettin' drizzle with it.

Drinking with Ingrid Bergman

Making him an offer he can't refuse.

Me within a meme.

Silenced like a lamb

Alrighty then!

Dunno, Steve. I don't think the "nuking the fridge" is the way to go.

Check out my defense!

I worked on a Tony Hawk title for Xbox, so I had to do this.

Wah-pah!

We have different kinds of weapons, but both quite effective.

These are some close-up photos I took for reference for sculpting in Zbrush. This is good to have around if I'm going to create these guys in 3D in the future. It would've been great if they had one of Benedict Cumberbatch as I was sculpting him at one point--however, his statue is probably at the Madame Tussauds in London.