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Ep. 042 Girlie
Zoe calls in to tell us all about the Noah Villains collection just released at Vault 28 at Disneyland. The entire Urban 8 line up is revealed. As are the Villains 2 turnarounds and the Park Starz chaser. We also give out the nominees for the 1st Annual Anniversary Awards Show (so Vote NOW!).
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DV: If someone is new to the site, could you review who you are and how long you’ve been making customs?
Cesar: For those of you that don’t know who I am, my name is Cesar Diaz and I’ve been creating custom Vinylmations for a good year and a half now. Recently I organized and put together The Customation Project with the help of Proxart, Toi and Romo. It was an art show displaying custom vinyl work by six talented artists.
DV: This is a special release, tell us more about the details?
Cesar: The Zombie vinyl’s will be sold on my website (mycustomations.com) on Halloween morning for $40 each plus $8 shipping. There will be a total of 31 unique, one of a kind Zombies; basically one Zombie per day for the month of October. Each Zombie will be signed and dated according to the day it was made. They will be sold at random and are limited to one Zombie per person, per household. You don’t know who you’re going to get, but your guaranteed an original design.
DV: Zombies, eh? Where did you come up with the idea for a whole set of Zombies?
Cesar: The idea for the Zombie set has been floating around in my head since last year. To be exact it was when I saw the premiere of the TV show The Walking Dead on Halloween night. At the time it was obviously too late to start any Zombie customs. Plus I was still experimenting with techniques on creating custom Vinylmations so the project was put on hold. Months later when I created the LOST set, the idea of the Zombies came back to me. Originally I was going to make 12 Zombies, but unfortunately I had to put the idea on hold again because I got so busy making 9” customs for the Customation Project. Now that the show is over I went back to the Zombie idea. I rethought how I was going to make them and the quantity. 12 Zombies is just not enough! You need an army of them! Then I came up with the idea of making 31 Zombies for 31 days of October.
DV: We know you’re not finished with all of them yet, but which ones are your favorite so far?
Cesar: I’m having so much fun making my version of Zombies. So far they’re all my favorite.
DV: Where there any challenges involved with these characters?
Cesar: I haven’t encountered any problems as of yet. From the start I knew I wanted to make the ears the night sky with the moon, clouds and the stars.
DV: What’s your favorite Zombie movie?
Cesar: George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead of course!
DV: If this is successful, will you do another set for next year’s Halloween or other holidays?
Cesar: I would love to keep doing Zombie sets. They don’t necessarily have to be for Halloween. I would love to do a Walking Dead set.
DV: Will any of the Zombies come with a brain accessory?
Cesar: Sorry Nick, no accessories this time around. Maybe next time.
DV: Thanks for your time, and once again, great figures. We hope the sale goes well!
Cesar: Thank you very much. Your readers can follow me on twitter at @mycustomations to see up to the minute info and pics of upcoming Zombies.
While at the trading event before the Florida Project, we met a custom artist that was garnering a ton of attention. Pam Murray from Orlando, Fl has created some classic Disney characters as well as at least one character that Disney artists will never be allowed to touch.
Destination Vinylmation: You have a very artistic background that began long before Vinylmation were even a thought in Disney’s mind… can you tell us about it?
Pam: I worked for 15 years sculpting and painting pewter Wizards, Dragons and all kinds of Fantasy characters for GALLO PEWTER SCULPTURES Company. Also doing licensed work for them including the TV show BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, and a Marvel comics chess set! I did many sculptures and paint ups of model kit prototypes for the Model Kit market, including the comic book character VAMPIRELLA, Agent Mulder from the X Files, Superman, creature from the black lagoon, Christopher Lee Dracula, and many others. So, I am quite familiar with painting on a 3 dimensional surface, which was great background experience to working with the Vinylmation. My husband Doug has written for many comic book companies, including Disney back in the 80’s.
DV: You work at The Art of Disney at Downtown Disney in Orlando and actually get to trade Vinylmation with guests as a Cast Member there. What is that experience like?
Pam: I love having people visit me at downtown Disney at the ART OF DISNEY GALLERY where I have been working as a cast member for over 6 years. Working at the Gallery is a very inspirational place for me to be, as I am surrounded my many great artists who work for the company. I have always been a huge Disney Nerd, admiring not only the art but the man Walt Disney himself. I am very pleased to say that hanging with visiting artists like RANDY NOBLE, DARREN WILSON, DAVID DOSS, and many others has been a great pleasure!
DV: What do you enjoy most about doing custom Vinylmation?
Pam: I like the challenge of doing characters that don’t easily lend themselves to the Mickey shape. This is why I did the Jessica Rabbit design… a very sexy character to put on a pudgy shaped figure!
DV: Tell us about the process of creating one of these great customs.
Pam: I start off by doing little sketches of how I work out the designs. This saves a lot of trial and error on the actual piece. On all of my vinyls, I use the very basic craft acrylic paints you can get at MICHEAL’S and WALMART for 49 to 99 cents or so. I painted directly on the create your own vinyls with white as my base coat. A few thin coats work better than thick coats which really look blobby….. I find a nice solid white makes the colors you add really pop! My vinyls are very colorful. Sometimes you get a vinyl that you have extras on, like the troll… so I repaint them . I pop off the head and arms, and spray a coat of KILLZ paint to cover the graphics.
Make sure you mask off the bulb part of the head and arms as paint build up on those parts will make re assembly very difficult. You may need to carefully sand the pieces after this step to smooth out the surface as the Killz is very thick stuff. Using Krylon will never dry properly and your piece will be sticky forever! I find that finishing them with a painted on matte varnish does the job of protecting and evening out the finish on the vinyl surface. I put gloss varnish on the eyes, lips, and Jessica’s’ glitter on her dress. This prevents the glitter from rubbing off.
DV: The custom that really caught my eye is your 3″ Harry Potter. Tell us about this one.
Pam: This was my most involved one to date. I don’t like the idea of sculpting over the basic shape of the Vinyl, preferring to keep the Mickey framework, but really needed to have the wand, and Glasses. I sculpted the wand using a paper clip as the wire armature , with Apoxie putty as my medium of choice. This stuff is GREAT! It is a 2 part putty that you can thin with water. It gives you about an hour to play around with before it hardens up, and you can sand, dremel and carve it and add to it, just great stuff!
For the glasses, I used a Christmas tree ornament hook you buy in packets of 100 for about 99 cents, and very carefully bent it using very small needle nose pliers, then painted gloss black.
Today we feature Vinylmation Custom Lindsey from New York. Living 1,200 miles away from Walt Disney World hasn’t deterred her spirit. She creates custom pieces under the name Vinylmation Chic Customs. Let’s take a look at her work.
Destination Vinylmation: Were you into creating artwork before custom vinylmation?
Lindsey: Yes, I have always loved looking at and creating artwork. I took a lot of art classes all through school. My mom is also a big inspiration, she is a great artist. I love painting, especially abstract pieces.
DV: How many customs have you done?
Lindsey: I have finished two, “Mickey Waffle” and “Mickey Gets Creative”, but have many in the works.
DV: Do you collect Disney’s Vinylmation?
Lindsey: Yes, I began collecting in February of 2011. I collect both the 3″ and the 9″ figures, and currently have about 100 of them combined.
DV: What is your favorite figure?
Lindsey: I have so many favorites, but I really love all of the Urban 1 figures, especially “Oopsy” and “Monster”. I also love the 9″ 35th Space Mountain Anniversary figure.
DV: What is the inspiration behind the Mickey Waffle figure?
Lindsey: The “Mickey Waffle” figure definitely has a lot of meaning for me. I got the inspiration from past WDW vacations with my family. One of the best memories I have from the two Disney vacations that I’ve been on is eating Mickey waffles in the morning with my family before we headed to the parks. I knew the second that I got my first CYO figure that the Mickey waffle idea would be my first design.
DV: How did you go about creating this unique design?
Lindsey: I wanted to create an interesting design but still keep it simple. I spray painted the figure a golden yellow, and then used a sponge brush to layer the darker brown color over it. I then handpainted the “dripping” syrup and the rest of the details on the face and body. I added the fruit details on the feet for an extra touch.
DV: What have you learned from creating your customs that you can pass onto other artists?
Lindsey: Patience is key. The hard work pays off when you achieve the results you desire.
DV: What’s next?
Lindsey: I have a few pieces in the works. One is going to be a 9″ figure, and the other will be a 9″/3″ set. Here’s some hints: the 9″ figure will be a character from Toy Story 3 that has not already been used in the TS3 set sold in stores. The 9″/3″ set will be based off of a short Disney film.
DV: Do you sell your work?
Lindsey: If anyone is interested, they can contact me about purchasing one of my customs! Check out my Facebook page or E-mail me at vmchiccustoms@gmail.com.
DV: Thank you for sharing your work with our audience.
Lindsey: Thank you so much for featuring me!
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Ep. 040 Confetti
We celebrate our 40th episode with a quick talk about WDW’s 40th Anniversary. Then we run down news including release dates for Alice, Park 7, and more. We answer a few Mystery Mailbag questions, and we reveal our big listener vote for our 1st Annual Anniversary Awards Show.
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In a month, Destination Vinylmation will be celebrating it’s one year anniversary.
As part of the celebrations we are going to have an awards show for the best of vinylmation from the past year. So starting today we’d like all our readers and listeners to nominate people and figures in the following categories. We will give you the categories and you have until Midnight on Friday, October 14 to submit your nominations. You may submit nominations for as many or as few categories as you like and can you can nominate as many figures or people for each category as you like. We will collect these emails and the final list of Nominees will be announced the week of October 16th on our podcast and online. Winners will be announced in November as part of our One Year Anniversary Store.
To nominate, simply copy and paste the categories listed below into an email, fill in the names of your nominees, and sent it to 
Remember all nominations have to come from sets released between November 1st 2010 thru October 31st 2011 (except “Most Anticipated” and the “Bonus Categories”).
The Categories are:
Best Disney Artist
Best Custom Artist
Best 3″ Figure
Best 9″ Figure
Best Jr Figure
Best Series (12 piece)
Best Series (not 12 pieces)
Best Chaser
Best Variant
Best Accessory
Best Location Exclusive Figure
Favorite Trading Location (inside the parks)
WDW and DLR
Figure Most Likely to be seen in a Trading Box
Best Packaging
Best Use of Ears
Best Use of Clear Body parts
Most Anticipated Upcoming Series
Best Mickey
Best DV Episode
Best DV Cast Member
Best Disney Vinylmation Event
And two special one time only (we think) “bonus” categories. These are open to nominations from any time, not just the last year.:
Best Muppet 3″
Best Disney Afternoons Set
Thanks and we look forward to seeing who get nominated! (Feel free to use the comment section to campaign for your favorites!)
Update: More pictures from Johnna and Freddie from inside the event
Update: More pictures from Johnna and Freddie
Update: Pictures just sent in from Johnna and Freddie from Room For One More:
Yes, that is and auction for a “Personalized Performance Art” by Noah. Minimum bid, $9800.00.
With WDW’s 40th coming tomorrow, Disney decided to celebrate The Haunted Mansion’s 40th right along with it. Tonight is the ticketed Room For One More event at Disney’s Contemporary Resort and last night I was lucky enough to attend the free after hours Trick or Meet up at the Haunted Mansion. So I would like to share some photos with you. First up, from our good Vinylmation Release Party friends Johnna and Freddie. They are attending Room For One More and made it over the Contemporary to pick up their merchandise and got a sneak peak at some of the decorations:
I am jealous. Hopefully they will give us a sneak peak inside the graveyard tonight! Next up, last night’s Haunted Mansion Meet Up. The Disney Park’s Blog hosted this free event. Last week they put up a Blog post and the first so many people to respond via email were invited to this special after hours meeting at the Mansion. Sorry for the bad iPhone pictures, my camera battery died. We should be able to update with some pics from the Disney Parks Blog soon.
We meet up at Blizzard Beach, many in costume. A DJ was on hand to spin music and ask trivia questions for prizes. The prize? A WDW 40th anniversary Vinylmation. The open window versions you can buy in the stores. Shortly after 9pm, we were bused over to the Magic Kingdom. It was a tiny behind the scenes tour as we drove past the buildings housing some Christmas and ELP parade floats. We ended up behind Splash Mountain and entered the park through Frontierland.
We were first guided into the Hall of Presidents theater where we were greeted by a guy in a Turkey Leg costume.
We then enjoyed a hilarious presentation by Disney Show Designer Jason Surrell. This guy, along with two of his Imagineer friends, gave an unforgettable presentation at May’s Destination D: WDW at 40 event. He was supposed to give us a history of the Haunted Mansion, but it quickly turned into a stand up comedy performance where he just fed off the audience and answered questions. With people recording the show on iPads, snapping pics on iPhones, and tweeting his every sentence, he made many jokes about it before saying that 10 feet behind him is Abraham Lincoln and the founding fathers saying “We fought the Civil War for this?” It was a great time.
After the presentation, we were free to walk around the Liberty Square/Frontierland area. There were rice krispy treats and refreshments set up. And characters walking around. Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy, Dr. Facillier (Princess and the Frog) and various ghosts from the Haunted Mansion interacted with guests.
Of course the Haunted Mansion itself was open for rides. But the real treat was the tour of the new interactive queue by the Imagineers who built it.
The Diamond Horseshoe was the site of an Imagineer meet and greet and select guests where treated to one of these posters signed by the artist. On the way out, all guests received an unsigned version of this same poster. Oh ya, and there was candy. Lots and lots of candy. Guests were given goodie bags that they could fill up at a few candy stations.
Hmmm, look at that. It wasn’t all candy. All guests also received a Nightmare Before Christmas Pumpkin King 3″ Vinylmation. Thank you Disney and the Disney Parks Blog for this great free event. It was similar to the one for the re-opening of Star Tours earlier in the year. I look forward to more of these wonderful guest interactions in the future.
Congratulations to Cesar and all the artists involved in The Customation Project. It was an event held in California on September 24 showcasing the talents of custom Vinylmation artists. We would like to share some pictures and a video from the event. The full photo album, and believe me, you MUST see it, can be viewed here.
We have a ton of international readers that will enjoy this news. Our friends over at Vinylmation World found out that the London Bus and London Taxi, both 9″ exclusives at the Oxford St. Disney Store, are now available at the Disney Store Online UK.
