Marvel Vinylmation: Black Widow & Spider-Woman

Back in 2013 I was able to take my family down to Orlando, FL to do the whole Disney thing. I can't remember how long it had been since I last visited the Disney parks, but my how things have changed. One evening my wife and I went out by ourselves and we checked out Downtown Disney. This was totally new to me. After a good dinner, we set out to see what kind of shops they had.

I eventually found a store that had a good bit of Marvel merchandise. Being the Marvel fan that I am, I stopped in to see what they had. Most of it was overpriced stuff that I could buy back at home, but I saw several trays of tiny black boxes on several shelves. Turns out they were the newly released Vinylmation figures. Blind packaged and retailing for $12.95, I grabbed two to see what they were all about. I was hoping to find the Captain America figure in one of the boxes. Nope, I ended up with...

     

I'm still not sure what to think of these figures, but they seem to be pretty popular. Small, slightly "plump" with translucent Mickey Mouse ears. I'm guessing the design on the ears hearkens to her hand to hand prowess. That about sums it up. The paint apps are nicely done and capture the essence of the character.

     

Spider-Woman is slightly more interesting in my opinion. One of Jessica Drew's many abilities include a venom like electrical charge. You can see this represented on her Mickey Mouse ears. Again the painted design is pretty awesome. I love the inclusion of her little spider webs underneath her arms.

I wrote these off more or less of a novelty type item. While I love most things Marvel, I just couldn't see myself collecting these. Going by sold data on eBay though shows you there are plenty of people that dig these little vinyl figures.

Vinylmation: Marvel Comics - Dr. Strange (Series 1)

Another part of my Walt Disney World haul I brought home last month was another Vinylmation figure.  This was actually my first Vinylmation purchase and I grabbed it while my wife and I were childless one evening at Downtown Disney.

On our way back to catch the bus (and to seek out something sweet for my wife to eat) I saw a store that had a lot of Marvel Comics memorabilia.  While my wife was getting herself some chocolate next door, I popped in to see what the store had to offer.  I saw some cool t-shirts and some nice painted canvas art by artist Ed McGuiness.  Most of the items in the store were pretty expensive so I kept walking.  Before I headed out I noticed several trays of blind packaged vinyl figures.  Marvel Vinylmation?  I hadn't seen these before!  Little did I know they were literally just released maybe a day or two earlier.  Explains all of the case fresh display trays that hadn't been picked through yet.

The boxes feature some really nice art by Ed McGuiness and along w/ the matte black top and the bold Marvel logo, these little boxes really stand out in a crowded store.  Just like the Little Mermaid figure I bought, these too retailed for $12.95.  I had to at least grab one to see what they were like, right?

I was already sold on taking a chance, but then I flipped the box over and saw the 11 characters that could possibly be in the box.  I really wanted Captain America as he is one of my favorite Marvel characters and he appeared to be the only figure that came w/ an accessory (his shield), but dang just about all of them look cool.  Iron Man, Hulk, Vision, Spider Woman...which one would I get?  And what is this mystery figure?

  

Dr. Stephen Strange.  OK, not one I was hoping for, but still a cool figure none the less.  After messing around with him for a bit I did notice that his cape is an extra piece that the other figures don't have.  Then again Black Widow doesn't have a cape.  These figures are painted very nicely and look great in person.  I love the way the back of his head is painted.  You get his salt and pepper hair along w/ the top part of his cape.  I'm guess his Mickey ears are supposed to be some sort of spell he is conjuring.

After getting back to our room later that night I hit up Google to find out more information on these Marvel Vinylmation figures.  Turns out there are two variant figures to chase in addition to the mystery figure.  That mysterious figure happened to be Ultron by the way.  While I couldn't find production codes to give away the surprise inside, I did find a few images of supposedly in the order certain characters were packaged.  Black Panther seems to be the most common so at least I defied the odds a bit.

I've thought about checking out the local Disney Store at some point to see if they carry these as I still really want that Captain America figure...and maybe a few others.  Because of their blind packaged nature it seems a lot of people are buying them in search of the variants and Ultron, yielding lots of them for sale on eBay.  In some cases for less than what they retail for.  Hmm, perhaps Cap will be mine before too much longer.

Vinylmation: Disney's Little Mermaid - Max

Last month my family and I traveled down to Orlando, FL on vacation to spend a week at Walt Disney World.  While I didn't find any Transformers while I was away, did you think someone like myself would return home without some sort of toy?  Nope!

Before leaving for vacation my wife and I had brought our daughters to the Disney store are the local mall a few times.  Each time while waiting for my wife to checkout, I had stared at these Vinylmation figures with curiosity near the checkout.  The whole blind packaged toy angle has exploded in the last few years and these Vinylmation figures fall in line here.  It seems no matter the subject the figures are based on (generic Disney, Star Wars, etc) there are 11 figures and 1 elusive chase figure to find.  At $12.95 a pop I wasn't willing to take the chance, but since I was on vacation and hadn't bought much for myself I decided to grab one of the Little Mermaid figures towards the end of our trip.

The figures come packaged in a really nice looking square box, but unlike other blind packaged toys that come bagged it's really hard to figure out which character is in the box.  I don't know if there are any production codes stamped on the box that signifies what is inside, so I just let my oldest daughter grab a random box from the tray.

We ended up buying this figure from the gift shop at our Disney Resort versus buying it from one of the parks.  The advantage of that was the shop had the regular 11 figures on display.  The Ariel, King Triton and Ursula figures were the most impressive in person.  My daughter, Olivia, of course really wanted Ariel.  So who did we end up with?

  

Max!  Prince Eric's faithful companion.  OK, we didn't get Ariel like we were hoping for, but this is still kind of a cool figure.  All of the Vinylmation figures have these translucent Mickey Mouse ears, but they are painted differently depending on the character.  Max here has a storm going on up there, most likely from the last scene of the movie where Eric steers a ship's broken post through the giant Ursula's heart.

I also noticed that Max has different sculpted hands from most of the other figures.  His are curved down and forward as opposed to the more human type hands.  The arms do rotate a full 360 degrees as does the head.

What's most impressive about these little 3 inch vinyl figures are the way they are painted.  The artist did a fantastic job of capturing the likeness of the various characters.  They even look more dimensional with some of the details.

I really dig these Vinylmation figures and I wish I would've grabbed a few more before heading home.  I haven't been back to the local Disney Store yet so I have no idea if these Little Mermaid figures are stocked there.  I've seen several of the lower tiered characters selling for $5$8 each on eBay, but Ariel was going for $20 plus.  Maybe I'll surprise Olivia w/ the Ariel figure for Christmas.  More the reason to get her a little display shelf up on her wall soon.