LOS ANGELES (AP) – The statuettes for the upcoming Academy Awards are based on an original Oscar from 1929. The film academy announced Tuesday that a New York foundry is restoring features of the original design to the Oscar statuettes for 2016 using digital scans and 3-D printers. It took Polich Tallix Fine Art Foundry three months to make the 50 statuettes needed for the Feb. 28 ceremony using the high-tech process. Oscar was previously made in a more traditional way by Chicago’s R.S. Owens & Company, the academy’s foundry for the past 34 years. Oscar is still plated in 24-karat gold and his dimensions remain the same: he’s 13 and-a-half inches tall and weighs eight and-a-half pounds. And he’s still just as hard to get.
