Throwback Thursday - Sunny Day

Series: Urban #6

Artist: Thomas Scott

Released: March 2011

The Backside of Vinyls - Carousel of Progress John

When I first saw this figure, I'll admit it looked a little weird. But once you get used to it, you'll notice that this figure was actually designed rather intelligently. Each side of this vinyl represents one of John's outfits from each scene in the Carousel of Progress. My favorite touch on this vinyl is the fan in John's back pocket. The fan is held by John in the second scene and has "Niagara Falls" written on it, but I like how Glenn Winters changed it on the vinyl to show the Carousel of Progress logo instead.

In the first scene, John wears a shirt and sweater, seen on the front of the vinyl and the figure's left arm

In the second scene, John wears a blue shirt and bow tie, seen on the front of the vinyl and on the figure's right hand. He also holds a Niagara Falls fan

In the third scene John wears a red sweater, seen on the back of the vinyl

In the final scene, John wears a blue Holiday sweater seen on the back of the vinyl

The Collector's Space - Enjoy the Downtime

I know that some collectors find waiting for new releases frustrating, especially if there's an upcoming series you're really excited for. I've been there myself sometimes. Vinylmation used to be released way more frequently than they are at present and to be honest, it gets too much. Yes it can be exciting to have so many releases, but if collectors can't afford to buy at the rate vinyls are being sold, they're only going to get canned (meaning Disney will stop producing that series) or the vinyls will end up at outlet. Neither are good outcomes if the series is great, just financially unobtainable.

I missed out on the Park Starz #2 Fossilized Carnotaurs that I need to get

Now I really appreciate the downtime in Vinylmation releases and in this post I'm going to explain why. For one thing, I have limited space and a strict budget, as I'm sure other collectors do. If a series was released every week or even two or three times a month that I want to collect, I would not be able to keep up. I have to be really picky about what I actually buy. If I love everything it gets messy because I can't have everything and I'm a horribly indecisive person! The downtime between releases gives me a chance to evaluate my collection and decided what I really want. (Assuming Disney give you notice on what they're releasing and when, which sometimes they don't, but that's a whole other story).

Haunted Mansion Mickey and Friends will be released later this year

Downtime can also be a great time to focus on making trades, saving money for future releases and even to sell those vinyls you decided you no longer love. I use "Vinylmation Downtime" to save money - waiting and saving up for the Haunted Mansion Portraits Set and the Tower of Terror Elevator Ghosts set nearly killed me! I also use it as a time to go back and get vinyls from my want list that I missed out on. Maybe I was waiting for them to drop in price and now's the time to buy, or sometimes when I blox a series there's a couple I wanted but didn't get through bloxing. Spacing out buying vinyls like that really makes me appreciate them more. Plus you get a steady flow of mail days! ;)

So if you're getting frustrated waiting for a series, try doing the same thing. It certainly makes the time pass!

Snapshot Sunday - Our Vinylmation Wedding Guestbook

We bought a pink 9" Create Your Own Vinylmation to use as our guestbook at our wedding. Guests enjoyed writing their names and leaving us messages on the ears, arms, face and belly of Mickey!

Vinylmation Review - The Jungle Book

Released: February 24, 2014

Blind Box Series

I'm happy to see another Disney series released in Disney Stores! The icing on the cake is that this series is so well done artistically and with a good choice of characters. The chaser was predictable, but its predictability is forgiven on the grounds of how well the figure was done. I don't think anyone could predict it would feature clear vinyl and Mowgli being hypnotized.

I will not be collecting any of these just because it's not what I collect, however, I'm sure this series will appeal to many Disney fans and Vinylmation Collectors. Even the artwork on the box is fantastic! Reminds me of the copy of Jungle Book written by Rudyard Kipling that I had as a child. It looked just like the box, down to the gold font.

Reasons to love this series:

• I think this series is very creative. The characters aren't plain by any means! Shere Khan has his trademark angry expression, Bagheera is being hypnotized by Kaa, Baloo is wearing the disguise he uses at King Louie's palace and Mowgli has his angry face... "I'm not afraid"
• The use of arms. It's good to mix things up and try new things with Vinylmation, it's even better when it works well. King Louie's arms are perfect! Bagheera's arms from Furry Friends and Whiskers and Tales works wonderfully too. In a similar vein, I'm glad Hathi Junior's trunk is an accessory, it makes the figure so much more desirable than if it was painted on
• The vultures - how awesome are they?! For a start they are iconic (maybe more so to me as a Beatles fan) and memorable: "what do you wanna do?" "I don't know, what do you wanna do?" I think it's great that they're in this series and in such a creative way: as 4 Jr figures
• The incredible level of detail. The Shere Khan vinyl looks identical to a movie cell! Mowgli's expression is impressive, it looks just like him and captures his mischief and cuteness at the same time. I'm blown away by how much detail is on each of the Jr. vulture figures
• Ears, ears, ears! I just love when Vinylmation ears are used to their full capacity. Bagheera's ears feature Kaa hypnotizing him, King Louie's have a banana, Shere Khan's ears have the tall grass, Hathi's have been used as his elephant ears, and Baloo and Mowgli have jungle scenery
• The characters in this series that we've seen before in other series, have unique takes by different artists in this series. It's great that these repeated vinyls (in most cases) are very different, not slightly different from their preceding vinyls 

Things that aren't so great:

• I really can't think of a single critique for this series! It really has been expertly executed. All that I will say is that most of the vinyls in this series are repeated characters from other series: Kaa, Mowgli, King Louie, Shere Khan and Baloo. This is not the fault of the Jungle Book artists, and as I've already said, the Jungle Book vinyls are very different. However, the repeats might dissuade collectors who own these characters already, from picking them up again in this series