Many...Monsters!

Godzilla vs. Hedorah (a.k.a. the Smog Monster)

As far back as the early 1970s, I had amassed a pretty huge collection of daikaiju movie memorabilia, including the then-available plastic monster models from Aurora — Godzilla, Rodan, and King Ghidorah. And in the early-to-mid-1980s when I lived in Chicago, I did a lot of modeling, primarily military aircraft, giant mecha from various anime franchises, and... daikaiju! Inspired by my good friend and roommate, Bill Gudmundson, I put together a few Japanese monster resin kits, brought to us by Mr. Miyawaki, who owned Kayodo modeling company, and scratch built a handful of my own. After the 1980s, I pretty much quit collecting, well, anything.

Relatively recently, however, I took a shine to some of the available daikaiju figures from Japan. All too many of them are way beyond my price range, but I have occasionally picked up some of the less-expensive figures and customized them a bit. And these can be fun to pop into some composited digital scenes, which I'm including here just for the hell of it.

MechaGodzilla, Angilas, King Seesar, and Godzilla from Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla

Gigan from Godzilla vs. Gigan

Godzilla vs. Angilas from Godzilla Raids Again (No, I don't care what Toho has done, I will not spell it "Anguirus"; Angilas was good for a lot of years, and it's perfectly proper.)

Baragon from Frankenstein Conquers the World

MechaGodzilla 2, Titanosaurus, and Godzilla from Terror of MechaGodzilla

Gorosaurus from King Kong Escapes

Godzilla and MechaGodzilla from Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla 2

Hedorah 1971 vs. Hedorah 2004