As for myself i've always been an improver of designs of many types, so my addition to the original idea would be to add a button battery to each and make their little heads light up (ha ha ha). Maybe even blink? Would add to the already cool idea.
I guess if we wanted to get carried away, add a sound detector and have their heads blink to the rhythm of LED Zepplin music
Radio-Electronics and Popular Electronics used to have similar figures in their pages from time to time. somewhere i saw a picture of a resistor sculpture of a tiger, not quite full size. there were also component manufacturers that used component sculptures on the cover of their catalogs.