What is a Garage Kit?

No, it is nothing to do with setting up the garage in your home.

Garage kits were amateur-produced figures by dedicated hobbyists using their garages as workshops.

Back in the early ‘70s in Japan, some the modelers started sculpting and casting anime characters and kaiju monsters such as Godzilla that were not available in the market. Figures were cast in polyurethane resin in small quantities and were given away or sold to their friends.

In the United States early to mid-1980s, hobbyists began creating their own garage kits of movie monsters and characters. In the mid- to late 1980s the monster model kit hobby grew toward the mainstream. By the 1990s, model kits and comic statues were produced in resin and vinyl by model companies in the US and the UK, as well as in Japan, and distributed through hobby and comic stores. There was an unprecedented variety of licensed model figure kits and statues in 1/8 to 1/3 scales.

Nowadays, garage kits are traditionally hand sculpted and cast using silicone moulds, by computer 3D sculpted and printed or injection moulded polystyrene kits produced by metal moulds.

Please check out my collection of garage kits which I have been collecting since the '80s. More posts will be added later.