**RECAP** GUNNZO Open House D.I.Y. + Trading Party 5/29/2010

One of the really great things about having a local vinyl scene are the people that come out to support it, and did they ever for Gunnzo's open house in San Diego. It was a beautiful day, the temp was about 78 with a light breeze and the view from the back porch of the quaint little vinyl shop in Old Town, San Diego was to die for! The event kicked off at 2:30 and to my surprise upon arrival the tables were already full of eager customizers getting down and dirty on their creations hoping that their piece would be worthy to catch the grand prize at the end of the night. Chika (Owner of Gunnzo) provided an amazing spread of food, not to mention a fantastic family friendly atmosphere where the majority of the crowd stuck around for 5.5 hours... Hit the jump for more coverage of this event!

Tons of folks were working on Munny's, some Dunny's a Qee, and even a Teddy Troop... and in the end a 3" Munny customized by a newcomer took home the $100 gift certificate prize. Not to be out done were all the customs that people brought to put on display for the second contest which also included primarily all Kidrobot DIY figures but i the end "Uncle" Sam took the cake with his amazing gravity defying custom Hazel! After all the craziness of the voting went down we had a ton of time to kill, so that is when the trading began, so many collectors brought out droves of vinyl, I mean tubs full, it was insane... and some trades and deals went down, so all in all it was a great time.

It was really great to see all the guest judges come out. First one who showed up was artist/illustrator and toy designer kaNO who also brought his lovely wife and adorable daughter down for the event, where he also hung around and sketched it up in some black books and on some blanks. Next up was now local San Diegan and killer kaiju creator, artist extraordinaire Paul Kaiju, who brought a grip of his custom figures as well as some original sculpts!

Last but not least was up-n-comer artist/toy designer Jose Reynoso who revealed his RAD new "Gumpy" prototype to the crowd, which I might ad had a great reception, and one lucky raffle winner walked away with a one-off prototype... LUCKY! Jose also customized a whole set of mini-munny's each representing some of the peeps there... he even made one of me, sweet!! Actually I am the last but not least in the judges category, but that's just boring... so I'll leave it at that :-) It was such an honor to be one of the judges and I can probably speak for the others as well in this manner! Thanks so much to all of those who came out, and I look forward to the next event... maybe next month *wink, wink*!