This model was inadvertantly the beginning of hard ball licensing contracts. When this model came out, the Lugosi Estate (his son) sued, and the Supreme Court eventually ruled that celebrities could, indeed, license their likenesses, even if those likenesses were used by a corporation in a copyrighted work. It didn't seem like a big deal at the time - The Beatles' Brian Epstein sold those rights away for a pittance in 1963. Since then, licensing has come to rule everything - including, ironically, the resin garage kit business spawned by lovers of these Aurora models. These talented sculptors of short-run, expensive models seen elsewhere on my site have been crushed by "cease and desist" orders from Universal Studios.

 

This is my 2023 buildup of the model.

 

I love the way the bats and the tree came out!

I tried using dead colors this time. In 2000 (see below), I used the colors of a well-manucred lawn!