Vinylmation Review - Poster Art Series Part #3

For today's Vinylmation Review, I will be continuing to look at the Poster Art Series. I have broken this post into 4 parts, and for Part #3, I will be looking at the seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth figures in the set: July, August, September and Oswald. You can find Part #1 here, Part #2 here and you might also like to read my 2013 Poster Art Series Overview Review.

July

Walt Disney World July poster art

July's poster sports true iconic Walt Disney World imagery: simple rustic looking colors, with stripes in the background and the four theme park icons in the foreground (EPCOT's Spaceship Earth, Hollywood Studios' Sorcerer's Hat, Animal Kingdom's Tree of Life and the silhouette of Magic Kingdom's Cinderella Castle) along with Sorcerer Mickey, the platform for the poster series, surrounded by stars. "Sorcerer's Apprentice" is written in a banner across the top of the poster, with 13 for the year 2013 in the center of the banner.

July Vinylmation figure

July is definitely one of my least favorites in the poster series. It just didn't translate well from the poster to the figure. We have Sorcerer Mickey of course and that's pretty much it. The 13 from the poster's banner sits central on Mickey's chest, with some of the stars from the banner on the front of Mickey's feet. On the back we can see the silhouette of Cinderella's castle from the poster, and more the the posters stars and stripes.

Considering the amount of detail in January's, December's and especially August's figure (below), July's is disappointing. There's so many better things to have included on the figure from the poster. I would have had the park icons on the chest and the 13 on the feet or the sorcerer's hat. Even switching the castle silhouette with the 13 from the back to the front would have helped this figure. I also would have preferred more rustic looking colors than more black and red.

August

Walt Disney World (left) and Disneyland (right) August poster art

August's figure can only be reviewed if we look at both Walt Disney World and Disneyland's posters. Both posters have peach colored circles in the top corners, 13 with a sorcerer's hat in the bottom left corner and "Bel13ve in Magic" running across the bottom of the poster, there's also a monorail running in the foreground of both posters, along with a steam train featuring "13" on the name plate.

In the background of Disney World's poster we can see Spaceship Earth, The Earful Tower, Cinderella's Castle, rockets that look like Mission Space's X-2 Space Shuttle, a hot air balloon (which reminds me of The Land Pavilion) and finally hang gliders which remind me of Soarin'. In the background of Disneyland's poster we see the Matterhorn, Mickey's Fun Wheel, Sleeping Beauty's Castle, and once again the hot air balloon, hang gliders and rockets (perhaps Astro Orbiter?)

August Vinylmation figure

August's figure is by far my favorite in this series and went on my "Must-Have" list as soon as I saw it. Really this figure combines two posters onto one Vinylmation and couldn't be more impressive. Starting at the bottom of the figure, we have the same train as we do on both August posters - complete with the 13 name plate. Moving up the figure we see Cinderella's castle on the vinyl's face and a hot air balloon. On the sides of the figure there's the Earful Tower and Spaceship Earth on one side, and Mickey's Fun Wheel and hang gliders on the other side.

On the back of the head are the icons from Disneyland's poster: Sleeping Beauty's castle, the Matterhorn, the rockets and more hang gliders. On the vinyl's back is the monorail from both posters. Moving up again to the back of the sorcerer's hat are yet more hang gliders and the Mission Space X-2 rockets. Then on the front and back of the ears are the circles from the top corners of the posters, perfectly placed to match the poster and positioned to make a hidden Mickey.

I love the color tones on this figure too, the orange and yellow hues, the peachy background and the grey on the arms, feet and ears really create the same effect as the gray border around the poster. Outstanding attention to detail on this figure.

September

Disneyland September poster art

I guess September's poster is so eerie and creepy because of the 13 Reflections of Evil event, but to me this looks more like it should be October's. Nonetheless I love it! Disneyland's Haunted Mansion can be seen in the background of the poster, with ominous clouds and bats flying overhead. In the foreground is the infamous clock striking 13 (how appropriate) from the Haunted Mansion attraction, complete with creepy eyes and teeth. The slogan "It's time for Misch13f & Mayhem" features at the bottom of the poster, surrounded by gothic styled swirls and patterns.

September Vinylmation figure

In my opinion, this figure doesn't stick very closely to the poster art, especially by comparison with other figures. It's still a wonderfully designed piece despite that, but less appealing perhaps if you wanted a figure that reflected the poster accurately. The bats and clouds from the poster are seen here on both the front and back of the sorcerer's hat. In the vinyl's ears are bats from the iron fencing around the Haunted Mansion attraction.

On the front, back and sides of the figure, we see the black gothic swirls from the poster. Then on the back is the sorcerer's hat icon from the 2013 poster art and the number 13, stylized in the same was as on the slogan on September's poster. The colors used on the figure, black and purple, match the poster and run into each other perfectly to make this an appropriately eerie and haunting figure.

Oswald

Oswald poster art

Oswald's poster looks like a still from an old Disney cartoon. "Oswald The Lucky Rabbit" creates attention at the top of the poster, with the rabbit himself in the center, surrounded by a yellow circle. On either side of Oswald reads "Luck 13 Since 1927". At the bottom of the poster reads the slogan "Some rabbits have all the luck!"

Oswald Vinylmation figure

This whole figure is the rabbit himself - Oswald from the center of the poster. The sorcerer's hat and ears are yellow on the vinyl figure, to match the yellow circle behind Oswald on the poster, with "Lucky 13" from the poster written in his right ear. On the sides of the sorcerer's hat we see Oswald's famous ears. The back of his head reads "Oswald the Lucky Rabbit" like the top of the poster and Maria Clapsis didn't forget his tail! The Oswald figure has a distressed look to him, my guess is to make the figure look old, as if he's from a 1920s poster.

This was a must-have for some collectors but I really don't like this figure. In terms of a translation of the poster, it's done well with almost every aspect of the poster included. But as a figure I just find it boring. I don't like the distressed look and even saw people tweeting that there figure had a "bad paint job". You don't want your $14.95 figure looking like a scrapper. I also think the lack of Oswald's ears make this look more like a black and white Mickey figure. It's not Maria Clapsis' fault as an artist, the poster didn't have much going for it.

Join me again soon for Part #4 of my Poster Art Series Vinylmation Review, the final Poster Art Vinylmation Review post, where I'll be taking a look at October, November and December.