Thanks to an email by Don that pointed us to the Disney Pin site, we have a sneak peak at two new Urban 7 designs. These two pack pin sets have held designs that represent the 9″ vinyl designs. So that seems like a good assumption here! Check them out:
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| Delightful Flowers | Mean Old Dog |
 This Spotlight On segment is going to be a little different than normal. Usually we use this segment to highlight interesting Vinylmation artists. Today we will do that same thing, but in an “outside the box” way.
On twitter the other day we spotted a tweet about vinylmation pictures. We clicked on the link and found one of the coolest niche sites about vinylmation we have ever seen. Cassie Dyer is a professional photographer from Ohio. Along with her husband, she runs a local portrait studio. In her free time she’s fallen in love with a little Park 2 friend: Poncho the Mouse by Randy Noble. Cassie created the site ponchothemouse.tumblr.com and takes all the photos you can see there. We had a chance to “sit down” with Cassie and talk about her, and her site. |
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| MC: How long have you had your site? Cassie Dyer: My first Poncho picture was taken in June 2009. I would just post them on my Facebook, but due to his growing popularity I decided to create a blog site in June 2010 for a larger audience to see and enjoy. |
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| MC: What’s your favorite picture so far? CD: It was incredibly fun to take pictures throughout Disney World, but I think my 2 favorite pictures are “Poncho went rock climbing” and “Poncho went searching for dinosaurs.” |
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| MC: The dinosaur one is pretty cool. How did you come up with the idea for the website? CD: When photography became my career, I lost my passion to shoot anything that wasn’t portraiture. I wanted to take pictures outside of the business but I had to think about what my new subject would be. What did I love? Disney World was the obvious answer. At that time, my parents had fallen in love with vinylmations. I looked them up online and knew that one of those vinylmations would be perfect subject. Poncho seemed to have the most personality out of the bunch. It was love at first sight! |
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| MC: He is cute. What reactions have you gotten from the site? CD: Outside of the Disney fanatic world, I get some funny looks when I’m taking pictures of a toy mouse, but it’s very fun. My friends and family love the Poncho the Mouse series. He makes so many people smile. Now I’m really wanting to branch out into the Disney community. |
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| MC: They are a great community to be involved with. Speaking of Disney, what is your favorite Vinylmation figure? (Or 2nd if the answer is Poncho) CD: Aside from Poncho, I love all of the EPCOT vinylmations. I’m also really looking forward to my Disney World trip in July to buy park series 6! The EPCOT road sign and Norway troll vinyls are too cool! |
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| MC: Are you working on anything else vinylmation related? CD: We have about 25 vinylmations and I’m wanting to take pictures of them soon. Check out Poncho the Vinylmation Mouse on Facebook and I’ll be sure to post some! MC: I will! How can people find out more about your pieces and see your work? MC: Thanks for joining me, and I encourage everyone in Destination Vinylmation land to click on the link above and check out all Cassie’s photos! |
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Our Park 6 figures decided to take a trip to the Magic Kingdom. We said, OK, and documented the trip in pictures. A big thanks to Chris for helping us out with the shoot. You can find “variants” to many of these photos at our Facebook page: Facebook.com/DestinationVinylmation
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Look what Donald pulled out of a blind box! Find the Wet Paint Donald “variant” photos at our Facebook. |
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Orange Monorail was pondering how to get his life back on track. |
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Space Mountain Paris visited Tomorrowland at the Magic Kingdom to spy on his competition.
Find the Space Mountain Paris “variant” photos at our Facebook. |
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Abe Lincoln felt right at home in Liberty Square at the Magic Kingdom. Here, he addresses the crowed of red, white and blue Mickey Ear antenna toppers.
Find the Abe Lincoln “variant” photos at our Facebook. |
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Needless to say, Pinocchio didn’t expect to see Monstro show up in Fantasyland at the Magic Kingdom!
Find the Monstro “variant” photos at our Facebook. |
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Everyone on the Ferryboat to the Magic Kingdom felt safe with the DCL Lifeboat on board.
Find the DCL Lifeboat “variant” photos at our Facebook. |
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Sonny and Sonny perfromed many duets on Saturday to a packed house at the Starlight Cafe. Cosmic Ray was pleased enough to have a open toppings bar for the guests on hand. |
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DHS Clapboard voted to go to Hollywood Studios but was outnumbered. So he spent the day at the Main St. Cinema watching classic Mickey cartoons and trading Vinylmation with guests. |
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Tiki was shocked by his Adventurland counterpart’s size. He was also disappointed to find out that his designer Casey Jones didn’t equip him with the ability to squirt water.
Find the Tiki “variant” photos at our Facebook. |
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Walt Disney World Road Sign wouldn’t stop pointing to stuff all day! It was really annoying, but I did capture this fun shot when he was showing us all where the castle was. |
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Troll of course wanted to visit his homeland at the EPCOT World Showcase, ride Maelstrom and have some good eats. Instead, he found himself at home in the brush just outside the Magic Kingdom train station. |
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No dinos at the MK, so Primevil Whirl hung out in the overgrown plants in Adventureland. |
One of our favorite custom artists here at Destination Vinylmation recently let us in on a little, well 9″ tall, secret. After receiving her Villains 1 9″ figures, Celeste thought, “I want to see my other favorite other villains in 9″ form”. So she did it herself! Check out Scar (Lion King) and the Queen of Hearts (Alice in Wonderland). You might remember Celeste from other figures we have showcased on this site. Her work with Adam Lambert for his charity auction was cool, but her Muppets’ Animal has spoiled us for whatever plans Disney has for their upcoming 9″ Animal.
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Scar
When I first saw the picture of this figure I was amazed. Whatever Celeste has done to finish the paint on this vinyl makes it look like it’s straight from the Disney factory. Not only that, but the face is perfect, right down to the sideways glancing look in his eyes. Her use of space on this figure is wonderful, having Scar’s head fill most of the front. On the back is a nicely rendered tail, one that makes me not care that it’s not 3D. |
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Queen of Hearts
Wonderfully colorful, this piece comes alive with the queen’s mouth screaming “Off with their heads”. I love that Celeste uses Mickey’s nose as the queen’s chin. And check out the crown in the ear. Great piece, I’m sure it would look even cooler with a tiny Alice next to it! |
We’d like to thank Celeste for letting us see these figures, and plead with her to continue doing exactly what she’s doing! For more of her custom’s check out Celeste’s site at celestecustomvinylmations.blogspot.com.
Last week we posted photos of the Celebrations set from our French friend Aranya. This Jr was part of the Party Time 3″. We put the word out on twitter asking for help with what it was. Disney Artist Thomas Scott responded, “It makes sense when you see the side view.” So that’s exactly what we did. We contacted Aranya and asked her for a side view. She responded with the pictures seen above. We are now calling this Noisemaker Jr. after those things you blow into during parties that make weird noise. Like this one…
What do you guys think?
Update: 4/2/11 The Art of Disney DLR page had this graphic and confirmed the price as $26.95. Also worth noting, the small print saying “2 sets per guest, per day”.
Update: 3/25/11 Disney Events page officially posts the April 8th release date we announced earlier in the week. Thanks to J for pointing it out. It looks like both the FL and CA D-Streets will get the Duck Tales combo pack. It is NOT listed as being released online. Set your alarm clocks and we will meet you out there before dawn. What time will you line up?
Thanks to Ryan, the newest addition to the DV team, we have a release date for the Duck Tales combo pack from the Chris Chapman designed Disney Afternoons Series.
Update: 4/2/11 As of Midnight, the Park 6 figures and combo topper never made it on the site. The Vinylmation Events page had had them scheduled for a online release on the 1st, but that was deleted late this week. Who knows when they will appear online, Juniors 3 was supposed to be online weeks ago.
4/1/11 Looks like Disney had a few Villains still lurking around the warehouse and decided to capture them and put them up online over the past day. According to @ilenelandestoy (11pm EST) “the (9″ Villains Maleficent, Jumba and Julius) combo has been online all day. I bought some this morning.” We also had this tweet from @vitto118 “as of 115am no park 6, (9″ Villains) Jumbo and Julius avail and malificent is sold out. More tron as well on disneystore.com.” Then messages from @volleytwin and @mjr1551 have it seem that at least Jumba and Julius were available until about 8am EST. Also Brad from Texas emailed us this screenshot:
Hello everyone! Park 6 is coming out tomorrow and I’m sure that everyone is just as excited as I am! Since seeing photos of Park 6 figures, we noticed that Disney decided to go with a bit of a Disney World theme, as well as Paris and Disneyland. Being from California and also always making (at least) one trip a year to Disney World since I was 5 years old, gives me a little background on both the Disneyland side as well as the Disney World side to Park 6!
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Norway Troll
Artist: Casey Jones The Norway troll is located in Disney World’s Epcot World Showcase in Norway! I think it’s great that they made a 3” version of this figure that stands extremely tall in Norway in Epcot. Everyone always stops to take photos with the troll and it is definitely the landmark in Norway at Epcot. Sadly at Disneyland we don’t have any Trolls but, hopefully everyone will one day make a trip to Epcot and see him for themselves! |
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Hollywood Studios Clapboard
Artist: Caley Hicks I love the Hollywood Studios Clapboard! Hollywood Studios is located in Disneyworld but here in California we do have California Adventure. In California Adventure we have, ‘Hollywood Pictures Backlot’ which is a little similar in the name to Hollywood Studios. The back shows different sayings like, Lights, Camera Action, which goes along with DCA’s Hollywood Pictures Backlot as well as Hollywood Studios. |
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Walt Disney World Road Sign
Artist: Thomas Scott Here comes a variant! The Walt Disney World Road Sign is a great figure! Always making trips to Disney World, this reminds me of sitting on the buses and going from one park to another. I love this figures and think that the variants work perfectly! The original figure says, “Magic Kingdom and Epcot” the 2 variants say, “Animal Kingdom” and “Theme Parks and all other guest areas”. |
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Wet Paint Donald
Artist: Mark Seppela
Another variant! |
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Monstro
Artist: Eric Caszatt Monstro is from the Storybook Land Canals in Disneyland. This is a great figure because Storybook Canals is such a memorable ride, especially the entrance through Monstros mouth! This is a landmark in Fantasyland and everyone will know exactly where he is from within the park! |
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Space Mountain Paris
Artist: Lin Shih Disneyland Paris is incredible! This figure really shows how intricate and fun Disneyland Paris’ Space Mountain attraction is! Disneyland’s Space Mountain is not as colorful and fun as this figure, but has a white outside and more of a blue color scheme inside. This figure is fun because it will go along with Park 4’s Tomorrow Land figure! |
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Orange Monorail
Artist: Dan Howard Everyone loves the Monorail! This is the next figure to come out as a Monorail except this time in Orange. Monorails are found in Disneyland as well as Disney World and help guests get to and from certain areas. |
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DCL Lifeboat
Artist: Randy Nobel This figure has nothing to do with Disneyland or Disney World but has to do with the cruise line. This figure is modeled after a raft that is used on board. This is a fun addition to Park 4’s Cruise Line figure! |
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Sonny Eclipse
Artist: Maria Clapsis
Going to Disney World as a little girl I always remember going to Cosmic Rays Starlight Café with my Mom and Grandparents. I love that they made this figure it looks exactly like him! Some people who have not visited Disney World may not understand who or what he is but once they eat at Cosmic Rays they will love him. |
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Adventureland Tiki
Artist: Casey Jones This Tiki is a great Adventureland landmark! From any Disney Park, everyone will recognize this guy! In Disneyland we have these guys near the Dole Whip stand. |
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Primeval Whirl
Artist: Thomas Scott This is such a wonderful take on the Animal Kingdom attraction! We don’t have a Primevil Whirl here at Disneyland but if you have visited Animal Kingdom you will recognize the design immediately. |
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Mystery Chaser
I don’t want to spoil the chaser but this guy has showed up in many Disney Parks and I’m sure his face is somewhere in your wallet! |
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Runaway Brain Mickey
Park 6 Combo Topper Great addition to the Mickey combo toppers! A bit scary but, still Mickey! |
Hope everyone enjoys Park 6 tomorrow!
-Zoe
Also released today is the Kali River Rapids figure. This ride is from Animal Kingdom, which makes sense because it was a reward for reaching 9,800 followers on the Vinylmation Facebook. (1998 is the year Animal Kingdom opened). Originally the name for this ride was Tiger Rapids Run, which makes a lot of sense since this figure has a very tiger-y feel to it. (Hopefully no tiger blood though!) If this vinylmation keeps form with the other WDW figures we have learned about, it will be part of a park set in the future.
Here at DV, we like to read things into Disney’s words. Hey, it’s fun to speculate. Well today, the Disney Store posted a short Q & A with Disney’s Vinylmation Product Developer Donald Ferro. The post points to more Flags to come! The first series of Vinylmation Flags was a 12 figure set consisting of all the countries in the EPCOT World Showcase plus Brazil.
