Star Wars figures unveiled at Madame Tussauds

Obi-Wax Kenobi, Chewbacca as a waxy Wookie, and a meditatively still wax Yoda are all featured in a new Star Wars attraction unveiled at Madame Tussauds in London.

The installation includes 16 of the most famous heroes and villains from the Star Wars universe, posed in 11 sets recreating some of the franchise's most iconic scenes.

A team of sculptors, colourists and costume experts travelled to the Star Wars archives at George Lucas's Skywalker Ranch in California to study, measure and photograph the source material.

A painstaking process

It takes four or five weeks for a sculptor to create each of the clay heads which act as a base for the wax figure. Once they are covered in wax, it can take another another four weeks to insert the real human hair into a character's head.

"Chewbacca has been our most difficult challenge," explained artist Hannah Scott who used specially colour-matched yak hair to create Han Solo's co-pilot.

"There has been a team of ten of us that has had to take different sections of his body, and that's taken over 800 hours."

The team took great pains to achieve absolute authenticity and Lucasfilm had to sign off on all the costumes and prop replicas created by Madame Tussauds artists. 

Fans can observe their highly detailed work in the gallery above.

The exhibition opens Saturday in London, England.