Every Friday is a treat for First 4 Figures collectors because of the gift that we’re given almost each and every week of a multi-hour livestream with F4F CEO Alex Davis and Lieutenant Chockles. But this week is extra momentous, as there’s not only a new statue going up for order–but for the first time ever, a statue that had been Vaulted and saved by the votes of fans on the F4F OCC Facebook Group is about to launch: the First4Figures Warp Star Kirby Exclusive Statue is now up for order!
Announcements & The Week in Review:
- Banjo-Kazooie pre-orders end next week on August 7th
- However, after F4F completes revisions to the Banjo-Kazooie statue, POs will reopen for a Last Chance Weekend to give collectors one more shot at getting B-K
- Cowboy Bebop Spike Exclusive Statue will be open until August 21st unless he doesn’t hit 1000 pieces ordered, in which case he’ll be available until 1000 units are ordered or until production begins
- Good first year at ACGHK for First 4 Figures–successful as far as first years go
- ACGHK is right in First 4 Figures’ backyard, so it really made sense to see how the show went; went in with no expectations, but were very surprised to sell 100+ PVCs
- Alex is more and more convinced that PVC is the key to conventions; if F4F finds that no one buys the resin statue pre-order packs but people do buy the PVCs, then maybe next year F4F should only get a GamesCom booth a quarter of the size and just sell PVCs there and not display resins
- It’s not just about the traffic and people seeing the F4F booth–it’s vital to be able to sell items at the show in order to pay for the convention (or else the company can’t afford to go)
- If F4F auto-converts everybody on the Wait List, then there’s no reason to have a pre-order window and close orders before production at all–the sanctity of the ordering window needs to be preserved for now
- Alex can see the ordering procedure progressing to open order windows for video game statues in the way that anime statue POs are done right now, but he doesn’t want GamesCom to be the catalyst for that
- Without having the fundamental knowledge of how many resins–if any–F4F will sell any GamesCom, he doesn’t want to plan any fundamental changes to the core of how the company pre-order protocol goes
- GamesCom Digital Packs would allow collectors to circumvent the Wait List, which is why Alex decided against them–that would end up being the same as auto-converting all Wait List orders
- However, if First 4 Figures lets collectors know that going forward there won’t be any more early edition sizes because they’ll be taking orders at conventions, that would be totally legit–if Alex decided that was something that they wanted to do
- F4F may decide to attend MCM London Comic Con convention later this year, splitting a booth with Animegami, if GamesCom is a big success
- Alex plans to have a complete massive Core range in the future with pins, coins, mugs, etc. once First 4 Figures has the time to devote to developing that
- Sneak Peek of Yakuza Kiryu statue face this week–“That was cool.”
- Also showed Onion Bro plush for the first time in a long time this week
- The painted white-gloved fist of Mario on Yoshi was also shown this week–deep in the painting stage right now
- For the first time ever, First 4 Figures will be selling an OG (normal) version of Mario with the Mario on Yoshi statue
- Since we all know what Mario looks like, Alex pulls out the unpainted prototype of Mario’s head to hold and show off during the stream! We can see that this statue is going to be BIG once Mario is on top of Yoshi!
- “Guys–it’s gonna be expensive. It’s gonna be expensive. But justified expensive.” — Alex on Mario on Yoshi statue
- Psycho Mantis Back of Head Sneak Peek today as well!
- Shameless Quasi-Related to F4F Plug: Don’t forget to enter the Gamer Toy News Cowboy Bebop Blu-Ray set giveaway contest for a chance to win the whole series on Blu-Ray for free!
Temptation Thursday (TT) Polls & The King of the Ring:
- Code Geass TT: 174 ‘Yes’, 173 ‘No’, even down the line so far
- Undertale TT: 97 ‘Yes’, 92 ‘No’, neck-and-neck right now; Undertale game collection about to be launched soon for the Japanese market
- FLCL TT Next Week!
- Zero Escape TT in 2 Weeks!
- This week’s hashtag is #F4FKirbs for a chance to win 500 Reward Points chosen at random
- King of the Ring Results: Zora Tunic Link Dispatched Metal Sonic; Skull Kid defeated Lucky Cat Mario; Artorias smashed Tails; and Twilight Princess Link PVC took out Super Sonic
- 3 Zelda Pieces and 1 Dark Souls Piece remaining; Zora Tunic Link vs. Skull Kid and Artorias vs. Twilight Princess Link PVC
The Q&A!:
- No plans to do any Dragon Ball statues (for now)
- Red Neon Arch Gate would make sense to do for a Yakuza Kiryu DE
- Phoenix Wright has been sent to Capcom; no feedback from them yet
- Haven’t had a chance to look at Crystal Dragon Minis because of being busy with GamesCom preparation
- If GamesCom is a success, F4F will go everywhere including back to NYCC
- Mantis or Grayfox will have a DE
- Metal Gear Rex/Ray are not under consideration at this time
- Faye prototype won’t be shown for a while–working on her 3-D now
- Will talk about Kirby’s left arm in the Making of Kirby Documentary that goes live along with pre-orders after the stream
- Crystal Cloak Alucard is coming; Chocks says the trailer for Castlevania Season 2 looks alright
- What collectors who attend GamesCom do with their GamesCom Pre-Order Packs purchased there is up to them
- None of the busts being worked on are Nintendo-related
- Will look into Dead Space around April next year when finishing up some other licenses
- My Hero Academia is still complicated; hasn’t changed–but there’s a possibility it could go super-complicated or not complicated; complication is somewhere from 1 to 10 on a scale of 1 to 10
- Nito is all kinds of kicking F4F’s ass
- Mimic is still expected for Q3/Q4 Pre-order; more likely Q4; Chocks is really excited for what’s planned for Mimic: “You have no idea!”
- Alex wants Skull Knight to be printed before F4F starts teasing him; Berserker Armor is still further away
- Spyro is at about the mid-point of production right now
- Solaire resin is coming along–Alex believes it will begin shipping in mid-September 2018
- Nintendo UK Store may have Warp Star Kirby EX–that’s up to Nintendo whether or not they ask to have some of them to sell, not First 4 Figures
- Skull Knight description: “Super Tight.”
- A stand for the extra torso for Kiryu sounds like a “definitive” pretty great idea
- Alex would say Q4 for the Mimic pre-order, although it will be up for PO at GamesCom
- Tekken Law is on Alex’s to-do list for next week
- Next Metroid statue will be Meta-Ridley
- Alex agrees 375 Silver EX is very low–that’s why Silver almost killed the line
- Some lovely stuff coming up in the Sonic diorama line
- Sandy’s back–Alex is so happy to have her back! Finally, she can get to work on Day One cards!
- Solaire SD PVC will likely have regulars ship at the end of August and EXs leaving the factory in September
- Alex has a fair idea of what the next few POs will be, but there are some complications
- Cowboy Bebop Spike has already sold well over double–maybe over triple–what Saitama sold
- Mugen is on the boat to the US and arriving at the end of August
- Alex thinks pics of the statues packed in their styrofoam should be added to the website to help collectors repack them
- No Diddy Kong Racing series
- Tekken hasn’t been particularly attractive to F4F’s customer base, so F4F is paying attention to that
- Alex would want to do 1/4 War (without horse) as First 4 Figures’ first Darksiders statue if he got the license
- If Alex died and came back as an animal, he’d be reincarnated as a panda or a wagyu cow
- The reality is, with Alphonse, Edward and Roy Mustang already in the works, F4F can accelerate statues for the license if there turns out to be a huge demand for Alphonse Elric
- No update on the Pokemon license
- Chocks’ is watching the second part of the Godzilla anime right now: “It’s alright.”; he’s looking forward to the final chapter
- F4F tried giving out fliers with Nanase at MCM London last year
- The artist for a piece is decided based on the strengths and weaknesses of artists F4F has been using
- Slayers on the list for a future TT
- Alex would love to do little Monopoly-style figures like a Shovel Knight pack of metal figures
- Alex would be happy to do a gravity-defying Ninja Kirby statue if fans wanted it
- Jin EX is still available via Wait List, but might make it to being In Stock
- No updates on Banjo-Kazooie Validation time errors, but it’s on the list of things to look at–doesn’t need to be done right away since numbers are months away from being assigned
- F4F PVCs are usually timed exclusives in the United States because that’s the way that Dark Horse Distribution handles them
- Could DEs ever be statues with increased detail or a different statue altogether instead of just add-ons to the regular and EX version of a statue?
- No news on adding names to the orders on the website–it’s far down the line from being changed; there’s a ton being done on the back-end to keep up with that has a lot of work being done on
- Shadow Fighter Kirby is much more likely than Blue Kirby
- Bayonetta statue currently in development is based on Bayonetta 1
- No update on True Form Midna case
- Will look into a poll for regular Luigi vs. Luigi’s Mansion Luigi
- True Form Midna DE will share an edition size with the EX so as not to create competing numbers for the next piece in the Twilight Princess line
- Every statue that hasn’t hit the marketplace will be brought to GamesCom for pre-orders
- MCM London will be done on a very small scale, probably sharing a booth with Animegami
- Alex would like to go to Anime Expo, but would most likely be in 2020
- If F4F were going to do conventions more regularly, would let collectors know that orders for statues would be open for more than one month
- Don’t have Crystal Dragon numbers yet
- The factory makes individual parts for statues in batches
- Spyro will ship this year–Amaterasu Life-Size Bust, maybe not
- GamesCom isn’t about anime–Alphonse probably won’t debut there
- Alex and Chock spend time watching anime and playing games for their licenses as research time
- Alex would say Ornstein will ship in early 2019
- F4F deals with wholesalers and not resellers
- Resin Crash Bandicoot will absolutely release before Aku Aku Mask
- ACGHK 2019 is a thing
- No updates on Genos or One Punch Man
- Unlikely for Fighter Kirby EX Wait Lists to convert, but Shadow Fighter Kirby
- Mimic will be open for pre-order for all of GamesCom and through the GamesCom special URL through December 31st
- No Soul Calibur DEs under consideration right now
- It makes sense to have the Dracula PO in October
- Development on Ed & Ein might have to start soon-ish in order to be ready for order in about 18 months
- Aika poll–“Let’s do it next week, please.”
- Choosing winners for the statue giveaways is on the back of Chocks’ mind
- Edgar Ramirez will be stealing Chocks’ future profile pics and background covers for future pre-orders
Warp Star Kirby Statue Details:
- [This section will be filled in live as it happens during the F4F Q&A #81 live-stream. Stay tuned!]
- Warp Star Kirby EX orders will be opening up at the end of the stream! Stay tuned!
- Warp Star Kirby is significantly heavier than all the other Kirbys that First 4 Figures has done.
- This is the first time that First4Figures has made a happy-face Kirby, as the previous versions (Sword Kirby and Fighter Kirby) were both angry; it’s really really nice to do a happy Kirby with no downward eyebrows and an open, happy mouth
- Unbelievably, Facebook went down around the world temporarily, which delayed more information on the Warp Star Kirby Figure reveal
- You must be able to see from all angles that Kirby is a ball
- Kirby’s right arm is straight back as he’s speeding along
- Kirby’s left arm was checked and changed many, many times by the licensor–they were were very, very particular about what this arm would look like; the tip of his arm had to be smaller than the base of the arm; this has been checked a million, million times–this is for sure the vision that the licensor has requested and it will not be tweaked in any way (F4F has already changed it three times)
- Warp Star Kirby is joyous and makes you smile, he’s someone to brighten up your day
- Kirby has one leg forward and one leg back because he’s in a sort of surfing pose on the Warp Star
Warp Star Kirby Base!:
- Trying to convey speed and movement of Kirby on a Warp Star in static statue form
- Alex always wants to make sure that the customer has a visual on the eyes of a statue, which is why this figure is tilted downward so that the statue can convey both the motion of riding the warp star and also still be looking into the customer’s eyes
- Beautiful downward slipstream of motion on the back of the warp star to give the sense of motion; slipstream has a subtle color gradient on it
- The cloud base definitely has different shapes in it and asymmetry, as it’s a cloud and shouldn’t be symmetrical
- The warp star is splitting the cloud to give a sense of speed
- The cylindrical base under the cloud gives you the sense of the cosmos, with a purple-blue gradient and stars and planets decorating it; this is really quite tough to paint
- With Warp Star Kirby, the top part of the base is much much much much bigger than the top part of the base on the other statues in the series–doesn’t have a massive footprint
- There’s some subtle shading between the five spikes of the warp star
- The stream behind the warp star is semi-translucent and a little bit glossy so it’s easy to tell the difference between the trail and the star itself; the stars themselves are also fully matte to give a contrast to the different elements on the base
- Very bright and cutesy–been a while since F4F did one of these types of statues
Warp Star Kirby Exclusive Version Reveal and Ordering Info!:
- The Exclusive Version of Warp Star Kirby gives off a beautiful glow throughout the stars on the base
- Warp Star Kirby EX will go up for order on the F4F website right after the stream
- Hopefully those who only want to own one Kirby figure will see this version and be happy with it
- Subject to licensor approval, First 4 Figures is trying to work it so that there can be some twinkling added to the stars–this hasn’t been license-approved yet though and thus isn’t definite
- There will be an always-on mode for the mini-stars, with the potential for an animated/twinkling effect for the mini-stars depending on licensor approval
- 12″ tall (30 cm), 12″ wide (30 cm), 15″ deep (38cm)
- Weighs 7.55 kg (16.6 pounds)
- 12-month Flexipay plans will be available, with Validation for low numbers occurring on Tuesday August 7th
- $26/month for the EX via the 12 month plan! $35 deposit when placing your order!
- The Warp Star Kirby Exclusive Edition statue will be priced at $349.99
- Regular version will have the same price
- Shipping Costs: $40 USD shipping within the US; $45 USD to EU; $55 USD to Canada; $95 USD to Australia; Asia $75 USD; Everywhere else $95 USD
- It’s likely that First 4 Figures will revisit this mold down the road for a Shadow Warp Star Kirby (and perhaps the Blue Kirby that’s currently in the Vault); there could also be a Shadow Triple Pack with Shadow Sword/Fighter/Warp Star Kirbys
…And that’s it for this week! Now that you’ve seen the gradiose full reveal of the iconic version of Kirby, are you planning on adding him to your collection, #F4Fans?