I started watching this genre so many years ago that I don't actually remember when I first came across all of this. But it struck so deep that I started learning how to make rubber masks myself about 18 years ago and I have done 4 different Godzilla masks. I have also done several Son of Godzilla masks and I really get a kick out of this hobby of mine. It's very rewarding a hobby and it's really great to see a concept come to life.

Several years ago, in my quest for the ultimate Godzilla sculpture, I called up Wayne the Dane Hansen, a noted sculptor (you can Google his website) for advice. I bought his DVD on how to sculpt a Creature from the Black Lagoon. The Dane simply told me that Godzilla isn't well sculpted. In the early days, that was the case, but now Toho Studios has tightened up their standards Vis a Vis their craftsmanship.

Major companies have put some of Dane's kits into production and he also markets his videos and kits himself too. He is willing to teach his craft, so consider him a good resource if you want to get into doing this craft.

I have a piece out on how to do modeling, molding and casting which is how you make 3-D objects from rubber and plastic. Watch Triond's blogs for its publication.

The original Godzilla suit was made of canvas dipped into liquid latex rubber and then foam rubber was cut up and glued to the suit. That's how it got that alligator textured skin. Later suits were constructed differently, and they made the head, hands and feet of slush latex from molds, but the body was still a canvas suit made the old way.

I also bought miniature action figures of Godzilla and the rest of his crew in the old Rt. 1 Flea Market in Edison, NJ years ago. The flea market is now out of business but you can catch these collectibles at comic, horror and sci-fi conventions.

I also did a hand puppet of Gigan, who is a Cyborg robot bird with a buzz saw in his stomach. He is one of Godzilla's enemies.

There's a magazine called Hobby Japan that I had 2 issues of years ago. It had tips on making your own duplicates of standard parts from model kits and has the phone numbers and addresses of Japan based companies that deal in Japanese collectibles of all sorts. It's very hard to procure all of this in the States.

I buy other Japanese collectibles and I used to have this really cool Godzilla hand puppet from Japan. It set me back 70 clams but it was worth it. I was a really nice shade of blue. I also bought a child's mask of Godzilla but the craftsmanship was not so great there. I also have two videos on how they make these movies and it's a gas to see the production crews at work.

There's one really hip looking dude I like to call Dr. Godzilla on one of the videos about making Godzilla movies. He has long, black hair and I don't know who he is and I can't understand one single thing he is saying because he is talking in Japanese, but he appears to know more about Godzilla than anyone else I have ever seen.

One of the raging debates is who won the King Kong vs. Godzilla slugfest. I have seen a number of varying opinions. One belief (and I think it was what Toho - Godzilla's studio - actually intended) was that Kong won in the American version and Godzilla won the Japanese version.

But some people go through a long-winded explanation about how they see it and I haven't reviewed their analysis for a while but if you try some websites, you'll see their logic.

There are a number of websites devoted to Godzilla like Barry's Temple of Godzilla. I used to frequent these websites. There is a lot of information about these monsters on the web and even though Wikipedia is problematic, they have a lot of information too.

Just do some of your own research about it. Take nothing for granted about that on-line encyclopedia.

To digress, years ago, when I was about 12 years old, I went to the movie theater in Deer Park, LI, NY to see Destroy All Monsters with a bunch of my friends. My father loaded up our Subaru (a Japanese car by coincidence) station wagon and off we went to see Godzilla save the day teaming up with all his friends to take on King Ghidorah, the giant, winged, lightning breathing dragon. It was one of the most enchanted days of my youth. The friends that watch Godzilla movies together, bond together.

In that movie, Godzilla's mind was taken over by the evil Kilaaks and they tried to use "Zilla and his compadres to take over the earth. Luckily, by the end of the movie, scientists figured out how to solve the problem and Godzilla led an attack on Ghidorah and defeated the all-powerful monster.

Ghidorah is one of the longest-lived villains in the Godzilla sagas. He showed up in quite a few movies like Monster Zero too. It"s hard to invent good adversaries and they tended to overuse Ghidorah in my opinion. Every good hero needs a good foil. It's a standard idea in literature and the arts in general.

The market in Japan is different than that of the USA. In Nippon, ideas that are old are still going strong. Godzilla, Gamera (the Invincible, Gigantic Flying Turtle of all things), Eight Man, Gigantor - a giant remote controlled robot, and Speed Racer are still commercially viable. They also have a giant octopus, a giant walrus and some other monsters that simply are too goofy for America, but in Japan, it flies.

But the US is the land of new ideas and people here get bored easily. We, in America, like new, new, new ideas. And the funny thing is that the best science fiction ideas were done in the "50"s when it comes to the invention of such ideas in this country anyway. Godzilla was "54 in Japan but was released in "56 in the States. (They spliced Raymond Burr into the American version; he wasn't in the original Japanese version.)

Yongary is a Godzilla clone made in Korea and he is about 20 stories high, even bigger than his inspiration. And Gamera is by Dahei Studios a second Japanese monster company. I had some Gamera videos too and you can get all of this by looking on-line for vendors like Amazon.

I am now going to work on my piece about how to create 3-D objects out of rubber and plastic through sculpting, etc and I will post that up too. Look for it!