The Busts and Model Kits of B-Movie Creature Features (Part 2 of 3): Dinosaurs and Monsters




In this second post of my three-part series devoted to B-movie creature feature busts and model kits, we'll be taking a look at items based on dinosaur and monster movies.

I'm not well-versed in the history of fan-made busts and model kits within the horror and sci-fi fandom. I suspect that it probably has much to do with the "monster kid" culture fostered by Forrest J. Ackerman and his Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine, as well as Aurora's model kits from the '60s and '70s that were based on popular monsters such as Dracula, the Mummy, and Frankenstein's Monster; as such, what fascinates me the most about the kits is the wide selection of films they cover. The creature features depicted by these items range from classics to cult classics to the very obscure, and almost all points in between. (For example, I even found a kit based on a TV movie from 1972 named Gargoyles.) Some of them represent instances of practical effects at their finest, such as kits based on the works of Willis O'Brien and Ray Harryhausen, while others represent instances where describing the effects as amateurish is a compliment. Much like the box cover art of the VHS rental heyday, some of these kits display a much greater sense of artistry and skill than the movies they represent.

Regardless of their source materials, these kits are labors of love by model makers of all ages, and I hope that this tradition of capturing the wonder of creature features in busts and model kits continues within the fandom for many generations to come. Click below to see a selection of B-movie dinosaur and monster busts and model kits.


Dinosaurs:













Monsters:































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