Travels with Godzilling: the filmmaker putting a monster-sized stamp on his holiday snaps

Tired of having strangers take inadequate shots of him on his solo travels, Kieran Murray decided to enlist the help of an unusual travel companion.

The 27-year-old filmmaker from Brisbane bought a toy monster from a comic book store in Chicago whose fierce appearance belies his 15 centimetre stature, the Daily Mail reported.

"Travelling on your own is awesome, but it can be frustrating to have a stranger take a photo of you that is framed awfully or out of focus," he said on online portfolio site Behance. "I came across this plastic souvenir... and decided that it was easier to take photos of it in front of the landmarks instead."

Naming the creature Ryan Godzilling, he took it wherever he went: to London, Madrid, Amsterdam and on his coast-to-coast travels across the US.

Godzilling has a knack for upstaging Murray in almost every shot: the monster has climbed Big Ben, gone helicopter catching in Nashville, outmuscled the heavy lifters at Los Angeles' Muscle Beach and threatened to wreak havoc everywhere from Times Square to Texas.

Murray, who is based in New York, uses Photoshop to bring his companion to life and says the project has helped him improve his photo editing skills dramatically.

"I keep thinking of new ways to make a more challenging image by including shadows, reflections and scene interaction. Some images take me up to four or five hours," he told the Daily Mail.

To those who accuse him of having too much time on his hands he says "it's a hobby of mine that I'd much rather be doing instead of watching TV or whatever people do with their spare time".

Stuff.co.nz