It’s a monumental weekend for First4Figures, as the first-ever “Last Chance Weekend” pre-orders are currently open for Majora’s Mask and Taki! But even with those major sales going on, First 4 Figures CEO Fun Daddy Alex Davis and Chocks still had a ton of news and tidbits (and some irreverent facts) to share during this week’s F4F Q&A #42! Will a 1/4 Link ever happen? What upcoming statue will be the largest and most expensive ever from F4F? And just what will the next evolution of humanity be? Read on and find out!

On Legend of Zelda:

• Twilight Princess Link 1/4 Statue is in the Vault right now until F4F can move past BOTW releases—they know finishing the line is important
• Need to have a conversation with Nintendo about when to go back to creating statues based on other (non-BOTW) Zelda games
• Not much thought given to a Wolf Link Life Size Bust
• Green parts of the Majora’s Mask eyes may be darkened so that they look less transparent when the eye lights are turned on
• First4Figures will never reprint long sold-out statues like Wolf Link & Midna
• Waiting on comments from Nintendo about the Sheikah Slate replica—definitely will not be up for pre-order in 2017
• Ball is back in F4F’s court for Rider Link—have received feedback from Nintendo

On Anime:

• Dabid needs to rally the fans for next week’s My Hero Academia TT poll since he’s always asking for that TT each week (Crap, that’s me! RALLY!!)
• #F4FHero is this week’s hashtag!
• Alex has started the process of discussions regarding the Yu-Gi-Oh license; reached out and had feedback about possibilities—these things take time
• If the Hellsing TT poll gets 600-700 votes, F4F will think about pursuing the license again
• Jo Jo is one of the first anime licenses First 4 Figures tried for—have not tried again yet
• All anime licenses that First4Figures has acquired have been announced (One Punch Man, Samurai Champloo, Berserk, Fullmetal Alchemist, Cowboy Bebop, Gurren Lagann)
• All the anime that First4Figures has the license for are Alex’s favorite
• Fullmetal Alchemist Alphonse needs to be submitted for approval before moving forward
• FMA Al statue is CRAZU HUGE!!! Bigger than Bowser and much bigger than Guts. Al will be more expensive than Bowser—the most expensive F4F Statue ever.
• Alphonse is going to need a blind pre-order for 12-month payment plans. Alex teases that something on the statue floats?
• Need to speak to the licensor about a potential semi-blind pre-order for Guts—would take place this year if there is one
• Revisions to Guts before full pre-order: want to have two physical models to show off (bloody and non-bloody); have lighting working properly and eliminate gaps in the sculpt
• Have not received feedback from licensor on Gurren Lagann Kamina Statue yet

On Nintendo:

• Hope to have approval to move forward with Metroid Varia Suit Samus Statue in next couple of weeks
• Varia Suit Samus Last Chance Weekend will be considered once Samus is approved by Nintendo
• Meta-Ridley is “a long-ass time away”—probably revealed sometime in 2018 depending on approvals
• Size comparison photo showing Ridley’s scale was shown last week
• Hopefully targeting the next Preview Friday to be Bowser next week (11/3/2017) with pre-orders opening 11/8/2017

On Banjo-Kazooie and Rare:

• Massive congratulations to the Banjo fans for the wildly successful TT poll!
• First time that F4F thinks that rallying has been done right in the history of TTs
• Alex gives his word BK license is being pursued; has already been in contact with the licensors about the possibility of creating statues
• Keep voting in the BK TT poll to keep Banjo at the top of the priority list and also to impress licensors with the demand
• Chocks expected the Banjo-Kazooie TT to go well, but was surprised by the level of participation; thinks it will be interesting to see if Banjo-Kazooie can sustain a line past one statue
• Alex has some ideas for where to go next after the first Banjo Kazooie Statue if one is made
• It would make sense to go after the license for Conker at the same time as Banjo-Kazooie, as with Spyro and Crash
• Not convinced there are Rare All-Stars beyond Banjo and Conker that people would buy statues of—tell F4F what you want to see

On Dark Souls:

• Ornstein will cost more than Sif; there may not be a blind pre-order for Ornstein
• Ornstein may not come with the Leo Ring; Alex thinks too much was given away with Sif, which caused production to be pushed back as a result
• No sneak peeks of Dark Souls II or Dark Souls III statues for a while
• Don’t want to take pre-orders for the SD (Super Deformed) Dark Souls figures based off the resin samples shown at NYCC 2017–want to solicit based on actual PVC prototypes; don’t want to be known as B&Sers (Bait and Switchers)

On Various Topics:

• Alex feels very honored whenever he can pop someone’s Facebook Group virginity
• Mega Man Zero pre-order hopefully in November
• When not at work, Alex works at home (and hangs out with his family and dog)
• Cuphead TT poll in two weeks (following My Hero Academia)
• Legend of Dragoon TT doesn’t show enough support—TTs never die
• The low SRPs (Suggested Retail Prices) F4F tries to maintain often make it so F4F would lose money selling statues wholesale and pushes out distributors
• The edition size of Solid Snake hasn’t been set yet, as he still has 11 days of pre-orders remaining (when POs reopen)
• First4Figures is Alex’s entire life besides his family; work/life balance is not quite right
• Chockles can have more of a life when he retires when the Collector’s Club hits 100,000 members or when Red Bull hits him up
• The First 4 Figures website isn’t set up in a way to make Black Friday sales possible
• Phoenix Wright is still coming along
• No hard rules for F4F Partnerships—main priority is to add value
• Persona 5 polls are doing well, but need to get the word out to more fans rather than just bumping the polls
• Reala has already had a physical model made and painted—there will be a TT poll to save Reala down the road
• Contest winners from NYCC 2017 will be announced November 1st
• Thought about adding coded price stickers to statues at NYCC 2017 so collectors could get an idea of the pricing
• The Darkstalkers Morrigan Statue is almost done in 3-D and looking tight—we should see it in 2018
• F4F Morrigan will be in a totally different pose from the HMO Morrigan
• Tekken Law Statue will be back up for order when Jin is further along and Yoshimitsu is ready to be shown
• Okami Shiranui Statue is coming along nicely—will be duplicated and painted soon
• The next big thing for the First 4 Figures website will be in-stock item payment plans—these may impact the number of statues F4F produces in the future
• Blind pre-orders are also being worked on
• Chock doesn’t want to spoil Thor Ragnarok: “It’s different.”
• Hopefully payment plans for in-stock items will be available in the next 1-2 weeks
• Alex drinks too much Coke Zero; Chock will drink anything fizzy
• Canada sometimes gets slower shipments because there aren’t enough orders of some statues alone to fill a whole shipping container for each
• Alex thinks the next evolution of humanity will be higher levels of thought—brain related rather than physical; Chock just thinks “something’s gonna be messed up”
• Darksiders statues likely to be 1/6 riders on horses
• Alex’s mixture of tea with almond milk and a dash of stevia is as gross as it looks

…And that’s a wrap! If you’d like to get alerts whenever these recaps and other articles are posted, please follow the Gamer Toy News Facebook Page. And if you just want to talk about all kinds of gaming collectibles–F4F or otherwise–please check us out over in the new Gamer Toy Alliance Facebook Group! We’d love to have you!