According to “Star Wars Insider,” makeup artist Nick Dudman took part in creating the wampa costume pieces for a pick-up scene. In his own words:
“I do remember helping construct the wampa. That was always a nightmare because it was made with sheepskins and weighed a ton. I do remember problems with that because they’d already shot it in Norway before I came on the picture. Then there were first pick-up shots being done at Elstree, so they were putting the shoot back together. I remember that being an absolute pain.”
It wasn’t just building the costume that was tough. In “The Making of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back,” assistant cameraman Maurice Arnold said they were trying to set up a scene where a wampa “thrusts its hideous claws through a cavern wall” and that it took quite a bit of planning:
“We knew that if it were not achieved in one take the whole thing would have to be mounted again for another try and consume costly time.”
The scene in question — a deleted moment that was included with the 2004 DVD re-release of the original trilogy — shows R2-D2 near a wall in the Rebel base on Hoth when a wampa uses its “hideous claws” to break through.