After a long wait, the very first item from F4F’s partnership with Rare Ltd. has finally arrived: the First 4 Figures Banjo-Kazooie Exclusive statue is now up for order! But just how long has this statue of the bird-and-bear duo been in development, and what challenges did the F4F team face in bringing it to life? Find out the answers to these questions and many more in the Making of Banjo-Kazooie Documentary and Q&A Recap…

[As always, the very best way to experience these First 4 Figures Making of Documentaries is to watch the entire video yourself. As such, I’ve linked the video below. But if you don’t have an hour-plus that you’re not using and you just want to skim over the information from the video…? Yeah–as usual, I’ve gotcha covered!]

2:13: “What made you go after this particular license in the first place? Was it nostalgia?” from Ashely Laing

• Banjo ticks the boxes of both nostalgia and colorful character
• For those trying to capture their childhood, to now see these statues in physical form, it really matches up with what F4F wanted to do
• In the F4F OCC, there was a definite rumbling–this is a particular character who really fits well with F4F’s lineup and style; a lot of people were pushing for Banjo-Kazooie, and it kept him fresh in Alex’s mind
• This license was a match made in heaven for F4F–only a matter of time

5:07: “When you approached Rare, what were their reactions to this? Was it an easy sale or did you have to work a little to get the license?” from Adam Tiley

• This was actually a great example of how having a relationship with licensors from early on can lead to different opportunities
• Alex was working with a licensor from a different company who worked to Microsoft, and he was able to point Alex in the right direction
• Alex’s partner, John, went over to Rare Studios, and it was a pretty straight-forward process from there; pretty painless

6:54: “How long was Alex hiding the fact that he had Banjo-Kazooie for?” from Alex Masus and 7:05: “Do the votes from the club play a huge role in getting this license from Microsoft?” from Kelley Crews

• On May 23rd 2016, Alex hit up his guy about Banjo-Kazooie and then had the conversations about BK at the Las Vegas Licensing Expo 2016 in June 2016
• BK was going to be the 15K members reveal in December 2016–the process was about six months
• Actually announced the license as part of the 35K member reveal in December 2017; announced BK simultaneously with Conker
• “We’re so good at Poker–you can never take us out!”; Were sitting on the license and working on it for over a year from when they were going to announce it to when they actually did announce it
• The votes in the club on Facebook actually played no role whatsoever–there was no influence from the vote, because First 4 Figures already had the license
• There was enough interest in the first 5 months without any official polls that Alex knew that F4F should be going for the Banjo-Kazooie license
• During that one year between acquiring the license and announcing it, there was an organic movement called “Banjo Mondays” where Banjo fans would rally for Banjo-Kazooie; this was quite interesting to see, as First 4 Figures already had the license
• Did a Temptation Thursdays Poll for BK, which was one of the biggest gambles ever in the club; didn’t actually need to do a TT poll for Banjo, but decided to make a tactical gamble to officially gauge interest in the club (as 90%+ of TT polls end up with a negative or lukewarm result); ended up being an amazingly positive response that was unprecedented for its time
• The club didn’t pay much role beyond talking about the license from January to May 2016; but it was great fun having the license and not talking about it for a really long time

17:37 “Banjo & Kazooie seem to be a similar situation to Crash where you are working from low poly models; Why didn’t you have more community input like Crash?” from Chris Medeiros

• For Crash, the character was quite unique and had a unique shape and difficult face; Crash’s face was also harder to capture because it was PS1
• Banjo’s proportions were a lot easier to capture from the original artwork, and F4F had a lot of support from Rare that made the development of Banjo-Kazooie a lot easier

19:25: “Was it hard to choose a pose where Kazooie would be equally as visible as Banjo? Greetings from Mexico!” from Silvio Lattuada

• If First4Figures didn’t go for this forward-motion flying pose, you couldn’t really see Kazooie’s face. The majority of the time in-game, Kazooie is usually inside Banjo’s backpack. So how can you have equal parts of Kazooie and Banjo…? By having them flying. Kazooie’s beautiful wingspan comes out, and both characters are featured equally.
• You could have Kazooie peeking out from behind if Banjo was standing, but the flight pose really gives the opportunity for equal screen-time for both characters.
• Alex likes that F4F went for an ambitious, dynamic flying pose that really brings out the chance to see Kazooie prominently. Too much of Kazooie would have been obscured if Kazooie was part of the backpack. If Kazooie had her legs out, then she’d be facing forward and Banjo would be facing backward–this pose gives both characters the chance to be fully-featured looking forward, while also emphasizing the exploratory nature of the game.
• The design choice was: How do we see as much of both characters at once as possible?

24:38 Mark Johnstone “What made you go for the fur design on Banjo?”

• There’s a difference between the in-game and promotional art for Banjo-Kazooie. This statue is more detailed and realistic like the promotional art and less like the in-game graphics.
• Banjo has a beautiful brown fur texture; Banjo’s hands and legs come out of the layered fur
• There’s different shades of brown in Banjo’s fur with plenty of black wash in the grooves
• You can see a groove down the middle of Banjo’s face and also the whisker marks on it; Banjo’s nose is textured and shiny with massive nostrils
• Originally F4F sculpted Banjo as if he was a human with human proportions, “and Rare was like ‘No, no, no. Shorten those legs. Fatten up those legs!”
• The in-game model of Banjo doesn’t feature teeth, but the official artwork and this statue does; the teeth are separately molded and inserted during production so that Banjo can also have a tongue inside
• Kazooie has tons of shading to get the colors on each individual feather; also has a bright yellow patch on her chest that you can only see from certain angles
• Kazooie’s body kind of puffs out a little bit as she’s coming out of the backpack
• Each stitch on Banko’s backpack is individually painted–the stitching is also present on the underside of each flap
• Having Kazooie getting equal visual time also comes with a con: that the character have to be relatively horizontal
• The characters are slightly angled on the base so you can see Banjo’s face perfectly, but you can’t necessarily see his shorts and legs perfectly at the angle he’s tilted
• The shark tooth necklace has a toothy color to it, but it also slightly differently-colored from the string that it’s on; the necklace hangs down because of gravity

40:03: “For base design, how did you choose which level to create the base of the statue to look like with so many options for stages?” from James Teske

• The initial thinking was that the feather launchpad would be the base, but there were a lot of fans talking about jiggies–and with the jiggies being such an important part of the video game and so many people suggested a jiggy as the base, it really made sense to make a jiggy base
• The jiggy base actually had to be made twice–the first attempt First 4 Figures made wasn’t quite right; not all jiggies are the same; the first base is actually in the Vault now
• The final jiggy base is very faithful to the original design of the jiggies from the game
• The “swoosh” that Banjo is suspended on isn’t just one-colored or smooth–it has sculpted ridges and a mix of blues and whites in it
• F4F has done extensive research to make sure that this swoosh will be strong enough to support the statue; it’s a priority to do extensive testing to ensure this

44:33 “What was the hardest part of the engineering?” from Wayne Gruninger

• The hardest part of creating this statue wasn’t the engineering–it was trying to figure out what the center of the jiggy was; it took a long time to figure out the exact center of the base; this caused sleepless nights–a lot of them!

46:05: “What made you choose this style of pose for the Banjo-Kazooie statue, and are you planning on revisiting the characters in a different style of pose after this statue is a huge hit?” from Dabid Kuhrt

• Dabid is asking the right questions [Yessss!]
• Let’s see how this goes–if F4F sees that there’s a huge demand for this character, then First 4 Figures can look into creating a PVC for this character later on
• Perhaps there can be a combination of a PVC and a resin made from the same design, as is being down the upcoming Amaterasu PVC/resin; maybe they could call this second Banjo statue “Banjo-Tooie”–that’s a future Alex problem

47:18: “Can you *boop* his nose?” and “What happens if you put a finger in his nose? And will this be another F4F hashtag like finger in Artorias’ face?” from Alessio Bucci

• One of the best questions ever–Alex and Chocks nose-boop both Banjo and Kazooie
• Usually hashtags are created organically–we’ll find out in one year’s time

48:35: “With the release of Banjo-Kazooie, would you consider others like Gruntilda or Mumbo-Jumbo?” from Brenton Friedli

• Always, always, always First 4 Figures is more than happy to look into characters that collectors want to see.
• Fans were a little lukewarm when the first character poll was posted a long time ago before the license acquisition was announced, but collectors can bump that poll up to show renewed interested and rally for other BK characters

49:50: “Will there be a Kanjo and Bazooie polar bear edition?” from Jefferson Gubler

• Alex might just make one of these at the production stage just to have in the office and to Vault it
• F4F joked about Kanjo-Bazooie teasingly leading up to the announcement of Banjo

Sea of Thieves Bonus DLC!

• Both the regular and exclusive editions will come with a free DLC code for the Sea of Thieves Bear and Bird Figurehead which will otherwise only be available in-game in July 2018
• Thanks so much to Rare for this generous inclusion! First 4 Figures has never been able to offer a free DLC code before!

Specs!

• Banjo-Kazooie statues is about 4.5 330 mL cans tall
• Weight: 5.43 kg
• Height: 20″
• Width: 18″
• Depth: 16″
• Comes in 7 Pieces: Wings; Kazooie Body; Banjo; Necklace; Swoosh; Base

57:28: “How did you decide on the exclusive?” from Brendan Rastello

• • The Exclusive version of Banjo-Kazooie comes with a bright, shiny chrome-plated Golden Jiggy base instead of the matte yellow base that the regular version comes with
  • This is the first chrome F4F item since Lucky Cat Mario; while chroming things is always a challenge, it’s less of an issue here because of the smoothness of the jiggy
  • Wanted to have something different for the exclusive, although some people may prefer the regular version as well; the EX only includes the golden base and not also the yellow base
  • The exclusive also comes with a golden musical note and a mini golden jiggy that match the chrome-plated gold of the base; these are heavy and have some serious weight to them because they’re chrome-plated metal
  • Please don’t place these heavy extras on top of Kazooie’s wings, because if you do–he won’t be flying anymore!
  • Let F4F know if you’d like bronze and/or silver notes and jiggies as well!

…And that’s it for the Making of First4Figures Banjo-Kazooie documentary! Pre-Order Tuesday/Validation Tuesday has also now arrived, so be sure to place your Banjo-Kazooie orders and/or validate on Tuesday July 10th to get your Day One Bonuses! All-new low numbers are available, as this is the first piece in the Banjo-Kazooie series, and you’ll want to lock in your Day One bonus reward points, holographic sticker and signed Alex Davis art card while you can!