RoE: D-Tour Series 2

WDWNT on September 17, 2013

A second, revamped D-Tour Series will be released at the Disney Parks in 2014. Series 2 will be blind boxed, as opposed to the open window first series. There will be 8 figures in the set, no word if there will be a chaser. This series will also include both Mickey and Minnie platforms. No previews were shown other than this graphic.

So let me get this straight… They run Urban into the ground with bland designs. Then ditch it for Urban Redux, a new take on Urban that didn’t seem popular. Only to revamp D-Tour to seemingly be like the original Urban? Give me some great designs like Urban 1-7 had and I’ll bite.

D-Tour Photoshoot

WDWNT on September 12, 2012

D-Tour took Vinylmation to new places in design and creativity… We took D-Tour to all kinds of places inside Disney Quest at Downtown Disney Orlando.

D-Tour Color makes a splash!

D-Tour Color livens up the drawing.

D-Tour Headphones shows up for his recording session.

D-Tour Hearts knows the 411.

D-Tour Hearts leads the design class.

D-Tour Key West is alive and well.

D-Tour Vines is hanging around by the safari arcades.

D-Tour King Mickey presides over his jungle kingdom.

D-Tour Mean Mickey hangs out with his buddy.

D-Tour group at entrance to Disney Quest.

To Be Released: April 6th

WDWNT on June 13, 2012

A few things we already knew about and a new vinyl are scheduled to be released at D-Streets this Friday. One April 6th the Cheshire Cat 2 pack, the Donald and Pluto Storybook Set, and a new D-Tour figure will be released.
Let’s start with old and end with the new. The Cheshire Cat set is a two piece set that shows the Cheshire Cat fading into the forest. (We suggest you also use your Cat from the Alice set to complete the transformation. We saw this back at D-23 and have been waiting a long time for it. A nice price of $26.95 and a LE of 2500. The artist is Thomas Scott.
We saw a few weeks back a new two pack set that included Donald and Pluto and seemed to be packaged with the designs the use for the “Storybook” line of merchandise. It was then confirmed and given a release date for Japan. Now it’s coming to America. The pack will be open edition and also $26.95.

Last, the most interesting and mysterious part of the news. They will finally be adding the the D-Tour set with a new figure that is listed as “Paper Cut figure”. Back when they were announced at The Florida Project, D-Tour was to be an ongoing set where the least popular figures would be pulled and replaced with a new design. Is this the first of those swaps? We don’t know which design would be removed and there’s also a few designs we learned about that never came out. But on Friday it looks like we’ll see a brand new piece.

Back in my youth my parents had me do something called “Scherenschnitte” which is the German art of paper cutting. I’m not sure if that has anything to do with this piece, but the best picture I could find to display such a thing as “Papercut” and Mickey was this picture from noreallyreally.blogspot.com.What do you guys think? These designs are often based on t-shirt designs, so has anyone seen a t-shirt design that would make sense? Let us know!

Release Day: February 24, 2012

WDWNT on March 5, 2012

I don’t know about you, but I kind of like the surprise of recent release days. Not knowing what’s to come only days before Friday, or in some cases on the day itself. Today, the 9″ Park 7 Main Street Electrical Parade LE 1500 figure was released at D-Streets and Online.

Thanks to the Online store posting, we also got a look at the reverse…

Are you all aboard this Lin Shih design? Also released both in stores and online, the 7 Adventures Ticket Book.

I was on the fence about this one… until I saw the back.

This Thomas Scott designed LE 1500 figure has great detail and a retro figure. Both have a nice $44.95 retail price! Very nice to see that. Also very nice to see, D-Tour available online…

I can tell you from the couple I purchased, these are excellent designs and look great in person.

Undiscovered D-Tour

WDWNT on February 9, 2012

Looks like there is a new D-Tour design out there, one that we never saw from Disney. eBay seller pincrusaders has pictures of a D-Tour design that he bought and is now selling. The packaging is D-Tour but the design was not shown by Disney when they put up the list of figures.

The headphones seem similar to the ones we’ve seen on concept art for 80’s Dale.

How many new designs will we see?

Release Weekend News

WDWNT on February 9, 2012

A few interesting notes about the latest slue of Vinylmation releases. First off, D-Tour. One of the original six designs that we saw Disney release photos of was NOT available for purchase at D-Street this weekend.

Flowers & Vines has not yet, to our knowledge seen the store shelves. In it’s place was a design Disney hadn’t told us about.

Headphones Mickey, a figure we reported for sale on eBay a few days ago, is fully stocked at D-Street. Here’s a peek at the shelf as it looked last night.

I saw a lot of interest in these new designs. We also learned via Disney Artist Eric Caszatt’s Twitter that: “Artists at DDG created flat 2D art that Maria Clapsis translated to the Vinylmation Mickey platform.” I was wondering about that as the first thing I did when I ripped open my first D-Tour was check the bottom of the feet… no credit given.

Next up, when Disney released the turn around pictures for the Theme Park Favorites, there were two we had not seen on the series poster.

They are variant designs of the yellow “Classic Fan” figure from the poster. A look in the D-Street display case…

…and the shelves…

…show no sign of the Red and Blue versions. Might these be more variant Cast Traders? In retrospect, this is a great series to have such traders. As this is series geared toward the guests of the parks that are not necessarily into Vinylmation yet and Disney would like to hook them on the idea of trading. A concept that hooked a lot of us into this hobby in the first place. Your thoughts?

Also available this weekend for the first time state side, the Chinese Zodiac series.

No oddities here. And the final release was this 9″ Valentine’s Day piece from Holiday 3.

Also of note around Downtown Disney…

The shelves where stocked with plenty of Astrology, 2012s, Flags and Nerds Rock! (minus Daisy) but notably missing from D-Street were the WDW 40th figures and Sea Creatures. Granted, there are a ton of new releases, so they probably had to move them around property to make space.

We also saw signs that Urban 6 is on sale for Buy One, Get One 50% off. Did you pick up any new Vinylmation this busy weekend?

Episode 056 Herbie

WDWNT on February 9, 2012

Ep. 056 Herbie


This week we talk about the latest releases including the Chinese Zodiacs and Theme Park Favorites. We review the D-Tour series. And Annemarie joins us to talk Variants… do we like them? What ones make sense? And as always, we open the Mystery Mail Bag and read your questions and comments.

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D-Tour Vinylmation Explained

WDWNT on January 18, 2012

D-Tour
Release Date: January 20th, 2012 (first series)
Price: $12.95
Details: Open Window

Update: 4/7/12 The “Paper Cut” figure was released on the 6th at D-Streets. The figure was the one were used to know as “Flowers and Vines”.

Update: 1/13/12 D-Tour will be released at D-Streets on Friday, January 20th, 2012. We also now have a look at the rest of the first release of this series. There will be a total of 6 open window figures in the first set.

The Urban series gives much artistic license to the artists, but D-Tour is art all upon itself. This is a new direction for Vinylmation. Taken from tee-shirt designs with different versions of Mickeys, D-Tour looks like an artistic gem of a series. This set will revolved around different designs of Mickey. It will also be different in that they will keep track of inventory and order more hot sellers and replace slow selling designs with brand new designs. They will be in D-Streets in February of 2012 and will retail for $12.95.

 Headphones Mickey

A great looking design that uses the headphones accessory similar to what we expect to see on 80’s Dale in the Disney Store Tunes set. I like the muted tone in the colors of this vinyl.
Mean Mickey

A face that looks like it took some inspiration from Runaway Brain Mickey. He has skulls on his shirt and scary shoes. It’s always fun to see Mickey outside his normal self.
Bright Mickey

Lots of colors here. A heart in the ear. Almost a sunshine look to his shirt. And you can almost see a face in the body as well. It seems very Florida, almost Key West in personality to me.
King Mickey

A great drawing of an art-filled Mickey. My favorite out of the original 6 released. 
Paper Cut
“Flowers and Vines”
Released: 4/6/12

This one is just loaded with Mickey heads. I like the colors and the pattern is very creative.
Color Mickey

Almost Muppet like with its flat, separated colors. Compared to the others in this series, it is plain and not my personal taste, but it does have a certain colorful character to it.
Mickey Hearts

A cool sketchy coloring pattern. Hearts in the ears and body. I like the style of this one, it reminds me of how I color stuff in but more artistic.

Here is some of the artwork these are modeled after:

Today In Review

WDWNT on January 18, 2012

Wow, a ton of announcements today.
Disney put a January 20th release date on this 9″ Holiday 3 Valentine’s Day figure we saw on a poster at D-Street.

Details
January 20th will be a popular day at D-Steet. D-Tour will also hit the shelves.
How about Theme Park Favorites? A set of open window figures will also be out… you guessed it, January 20th.

Details
This crazy little hamster appeared on Vinylmation’s Facebook page. It’s Rhino from Bolt! And yes, that’s his own plastic ball. I saw a great comment speculating is is an Animation 2 LE. How cool would that be?
Oh ya, and this little set came across from China. It’s the Chinese Zodiac set. This drops in the states on… January 20th!

Details
We also had a special treat… Vinylmation projects from the 7th and 8th grade art classes of the Millennium Middle School.