The Artists of Urban Vinyl

It's this sense of freedom that draws more artists to the field and fuels urban vinyl's growth. "More and more people are hearing about it and getting into it. That just means you are going to be able to sell your toys and keep making more. The pieces that are really good are going to float to the top. The not so good stuff is just going to sit there and kinda' disappear," Madl says. Nolasco agrees that urban vinyl's success will change the scene. "It's creating more people to come out with more figures. Instead of just having one company dominate the scene, you actually have more underground companies coming up with figures and putting their mark on to the scene," he says.

Kidrobot, the urban vinyl's unofficial epicenter in the U.S. has now leveraged their most popular figure's celebrity into other markets. Madl is one of the many artists collaborating with them on this venture. "As a business move, I think it's great. If they want to make a hoodie that comes with my Dunny, I'm down with it. It's getting my artwork out there. It just exposes more people to my work," he says. And in the end, maybe that is what urban vinyl truly is -- another channel for an artist to tell their story. In this case, the medium is not the message. It is the artist, with their unique style painted onto a custom figure, that ends up being the take away.