5 thoughts on “Urban Redux 1”

1. This will probably turn into a rant, but here we go

   I don’t understand this series at all. What makes it a redux? Why only 8 figures, 2 of which are mysteries? I feel like the artists or designers keep trying to make it more like Dunny or other urban vinyl sets, but don’t understand what the appeal is with those. Instead we have he same 10 or so Disney artists trying to do designs that they aren’t comfortable with and seem forced.

   If they really wanted to overhaul the Urban set, I would do something similar to a Dunny series and have 12 different outside artists create their own designs on a figure. A lot of urban vinyl is designed by low brow or urban artists, basically artists who produce character-based works and aren’t considered “fine art”. These urban artists each have their own style. I can look at my Dunnies and know which ones Joe Ledbetter or Gary Baseman or Travis Lampe designed because each artist has their own style. I would argue that with the exception of Maria Clapsis and Gerald Mendez, none of the Vinylmation artists really have a unique style, so the urban series has basically become just a random grab bag of stuff like food and animals and people from various subcultures like rockers, sumos, beatniks, etc.

   For this series it seems like they thought, “we need to make the designs more nonsensical and wacky, that will make it urban.” It’s like they’re trying to get on the urban vinyl bandwagon without understanding what makes it special or popular. I liked Cutesters Too because it was similar to Maria’s non-Disney artwork, so it was kind of like her own urban artist showcase. Same goes for Under The Big Top and Gerald Mendez. Urban vinyl is appealing to me because I feel like I can own a piece of artwork from my favorite artists even if I don’t have thousands of dollars to spend on their paintings. Monty Maldovan isn’t a name outside of Disney and upon researching him, I can’t find any non-Disney artwork. He’s not an urban artist and the artwork of the pig figure means nothing to me; it’s just a wacky design. I collect Vinylmation for a different reason than I collect other urban vinyl: there’s a Disney connection. Even if the artists aren’t famous urban artists, they still are making designs of things that I have a connection to. I’ll buy almost any villain figure just because I like villains, not because I like the artwork of some specific Disney artist. There are certainly artists I like more than others (love Gerald Mendez, dislike Casey Jones), but whether or not I like them depends on how they interpret characters or things that I like since, with the exception of a couple, they have no non-Disney work for me to appreciate them by. The urban series becomes just a bunch of random designs from artists that I personally don’t care about.

   Basically, what I’m trying to say is that Disney doesn’t understand what urban vinyl really is and if they really want to make a good, true urban series, they need to step outside of their comfortable artist bubble. They’ve worked with urban artists like Julie West and Miss Mindy for one of a kinds, why not pay them to make designs and mass produce them in a series? Vinylmation has become its own thing, almost separate from all other urban vinyl. I like Vinylmation because it’s Vinylmation, not because it’s trying really hard to be Dunny. However, they can keep repackaging the urban series any way they like, but this series is no different than any of the others, even if the designs are less straight-forward.

   That said, the ant farm figure is neat, and I’ll bet Enrique Pita’s chaser will be cool.

2. Just going through all the new images from the Mickey Circus events shows that when Disney does Disney their artists come up with awesome toys. However I’m in total agreement with Rust. These Urban series all seem forced and uncomfortable and like Disney trying hard (and mostly failing) to be KidRobot. At this point I have a couple hundred Vinylmations in my collection and I keep waiting for Disney to open the doors and let in outside artists to see what they could come up with.

   The insufferably cool “Urban” artists who work with Kidrobot and the other “art” toy companies mostly just ignore Vinylmation and it would be great to see their smug arrogance taken down a notch by letting them play in Vinylmation land.

   • I know in most other urban vinyl and custom toy communities, Vinylmation is seen as less than or not real urban vinyl. Most people on Kidrobot and other toy forums see it as a cheap knock-off and I think that hiring legitimate urban artists to at least design the urban series would help that tremendously. If people saw established, non-Disney, artists using the figure, they would be more inclined to get into collecting it and more inclined to customize it. By limiting themselves to using the same 10 artists for everything and claiming it’s urban vinyl without there being anything urban about it, they are neglecting a whole community and base of sales.

     I feel like I lead a double life. By day, I customize urban vinyl and post on these forums, but by night I customize Vinylmation and post on these other forums, and I can never let the two cross over.

3. Like the new “size” as urbans are often at the bottom of wants lists due to the number of series and weird vinyls…maybe making less per series will improve sales.

4. So is half of the series ‘Country’ themed and the other ‘Japanese’ themed?

Comments are closed.