OSCARS GET RETRO FACE-LIFT

This year’s awards based on original 1929 statuette

LOS ANGELES — 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. Oscar’s dimensions remain the same: He’s 13 ½ inches tall and weighs 8 ½ pounds. And he’s still just as hard to get.

At left, an Oscar statuette is plated with 24-karat gold before being given a final buff and mounted on its base in the Brooklyn borough of New York. Since no one knows the recipients yet, nameplates will be placed on the statuettes after they have...

Dorith Mous photos / Associated Press