This month’s entry comes with a soundtrack. Hit the play button below if you’re up for a little music.

Donovan – Atlantis

What a great time for fans of plastic figure models. Five years ago, it seemed the “big guys” had declared our hobby dead and not worth resuscitating. Polar Lights was at the end of a spectacular run of kits, including a few wonderful originals and many “repops” of classic Aurora monsters and heroes. But Playing Mantis, PL’s owner, was purchased by a larger company that was much more interested in Johnny Lightning cars than model kits.

The message that seemed to come down to figure-kit hobbyists was, “You’re not worth our time anymore.”

Fortunately, a few “little guys” decided not to accept that the hobby was dead and took steps. Moebius emerged and started producing terrific figure kits. Monarch’s Nosferatu was a hit.

Wasn’t long before figure kits started appearing from other companies that had the molds handy. Revell has put a handful of Aurora classics on hobby store shelves for the umpteenth time. Polar Lights is back in the game.

Still there’s plenty of material to mine. Hobbyists throw out wish-list material at every opportunity, hoping for revivals of kits they knew and loved as kids, and for stuff they’ve never owned but always been interested in.

Enter Atlantis Model Co., another small producer ready to make some of those dreams come true. The company has already released three UFO models. It plans to follow up soon with reissues of Aurora’s American Buffalo and Black Bear kits.

A bevy of Aurora figure kit releases are in the works for 2011, including Blackbeard and Captain Kidd, Gladiators and more.

The “little guys” behind Atlantis Peter Vetri, 39, and Rick Delfavero, 45, of East Northport, N.Y. They’re the owners of Megahobby.com Inc. and founded Atlantis in April 2009. They’re getting help from hobby expert Andy Yanchus, who serves as a consultant.

The company is named after Donovan’s classic folk-pop song.

Megahobby is about to celebrate its 10th year in business. Peter says he and Rick have “built many models over our lifetimes and continue to do so.”

My introduction to Atlantis Models came courtesy of Scott McKillop of Monarch. “If they can do faithful repops of the aurora kits, I will be a big fan, he wrote in an e-mail. “Looks like a great company.”

Q&A WITH PETER VETRI

Resin the Barbarian: When and how did you decide to start Atlantis?

Peter: Atlantis was started last April. We wanted to grow Megahobby through another sales channel besides retail sales. We love kits and think we can do a good job making them so Atlantis was born.

RtB: So far, the kits available from Atlantis were manufactured by other companies, correct?… Read the rest