While First 4 Figures is predominantly well-known for their long-running line of video game statues,in recent years they’ve decided to branch off into anime figures. And following up Saitama (One Punch Man), Mugen (Samurai Champloo) and Guts (Berserk), it’s the fourth entry in the F4F Anime Series: the Exclusive Cowboy Bebop Spike figure is now up for order! It’s the 20th Anniversary of Cowboy Bebop this year, and the first resin statue for the anime ever! Wondering what kind of work and development went into this masterpiece? Read on for the full documentary and Q&A Recap!

[As usual, I just want to remind everyone that the very best way to experience these First 4 Figures Making of Documentaries is by actually watching them. I definitely recommend that everybody do so for themselves if they have the time–and in fact, I’ve placed the video right below so you can do so! But if you don’t have the time, or you already watched it and just wanted a quick refresher? Fear not–I’ve gotcha covered!]

3:45 Akemi Yukimura — “What made you decide to start the Cowboy Bebop line?”

• F4F felt that there was a lot of crossover between anime and gaming, and wanted to branch out to anime a little bit
• Cowboy Bebop was one of the top responses to a poll in the First 4 Figures Official Collector’s Club Facebook Group as to what anime people would be interested in statues from
• Reached out to Sunrise about Cowboy Bebop; was quite fortunate that F4F was already working for Bandai-Namco, so already had contacts with Bandai (who owns Sunrise)
• Wanted to do resin statues in 1:4 scale, which officially licensed anime statues generally haven’t been done in (typically anime figures and statues are much smaller and made of PVC)
• Decided to go with Cowboy Bebop primarily because of the demand in the F4F OCC Facebook group for this classic anime that doesn’t have much other merchandise available

8:54 Kevin Morgan — “What are the main differences so far for working with anime companies as opposed to game companies?”

• Usually video games is usually based on publishers having a license and being able to license it out, whereas anime typically come from a manga–and the anime and manga licensors for a property can be different; in addition, anime licensors can be split up territory-wise
• Luckily, Cowboy Bebop isn’t based off of a manga, so there’s no large committee that needed to review the license request in this case
• Anime statues have slightly more steps involved in the licensing and development process than video game statues usually do

Brendan Rastello 12:12 — “How difficult is it translating an anime to a three dimensional statue?”

• It’s really, really tough–almost like “going back to school” tough
• The development time on these means that there’s a lot of work on different statues done simultaneously, so Saitama, Mugen and Guts (the first three statues that were released in the F4F Anime line) were being worked on at the same time as the Spike figure and Jet Black
• It’s learning about the anime style of figure that First 4 Figures had to learn over again
• When you make a video game character, it really needs to look exactly like it is in the video game–so you’re trying to recreate a 3-D object in 3-D
• Totally different in anime, because there are differences in the character model from different angles (because it’s hand-drawn 2-D art)–choices have to be made about how to reconcile differences in the character design from different angles
• It’s not just the inconsistencies between each frame that makes things difficult, though–it’s the styling as well (such as lines on the nose or sometimes the nose not even being drawn on from certain angles at all)
• You’re kind of forced in your mind to fill in the blanks, as sometimes body parts just aren’t drawn at all from certain angles, but they still need to be present on the 3-D sculpture
• The moment you’re trying to create something in 3-D form that people are conceptualizing themselves by filling in the blanks, it becomes really tough to do and something that requires a lot to focus on
• The stylized version of Mugen, Spike and Jet really became about trying to fill in the blanks in a consistent manner
• Whereas a realistic statue of an old person would have sculpted wrinkles, but in anime the face gets longer as a character gets older; F4F had to get the length of the face perfect on Spike to portray his age

20:29 Brenton Friedli — “I love the static pose for this line, as it saves room and it works for the line as well. Are you planning on keeping them all in a static pose?”

• When it comes to the posing of Spike, F4F really envisioned the whole Cowboy Bebop crew and how they would look next to each other; pictured the whole crew in museum (not dynamic) poses standing next to each other
• With any new license, new people discover First4Figures
• 1:4 scale anime statues isn’t something that you really see out in the marketplace very often, so many anime fans will likely be quite shocked by just how big the F4F Cowboy Bebop Spike figure is
• For these new-to-F4F anime collectors, space may be an issue, as many fans will likely want to have all four members of the crew displayed, so the spatial footprint had to be considered
• Space-saving was more of a factor in the design phase than it usually is for video game statues
• Having all the Cowboy Bebop statues in museum poses allows for a really uniform, consistent display
• Spike isn’t “just standing there”–Spike’s personality is infused in the pose; he’s aloof and relaxed with his hand in his pocket, but he’s also not completely straight–with his back arched and his leg bending forward
• Spike’s body itself is angling to one side because of the bend from his one leg, with his left shoulder backwards and his right shoulder forward; he’s relaxed–but could take you out at any time!
• It’s not just a static pose–there’s some slight movement, with even Spike’s head itself slightly angled
• Breaking the line of symmetry keeps things from looking too static and stiff
• Spike’s finger isn’t on the trigger–if your finger is on the trigger, you must be shooting the gun; otherwise your finger should be on the side (Shout-out to Bang H Le for giving Alex gun-safety lessons!)
• At any time, Spike could lower his finger to fire the gun: “Bang!”

33:55 Jeremy Bierson — “We know there’s been extra stitching added to the suit seam to help flesh out Spike in a 3-D space. Were there any other details added for this purpose?”

• “It’s time to talk about the details!”
• The most important part of the statue is obviously the head sculpt, which a lot of time was spent on
• Spike’s hair is wavy and all-over; a lot of time was spent on getting the hair just right
• Wanted to have a lot of detail on the hair, but also not overdo it–it has to look like an anime character’s hair; this was really tough because of the very specific directions on Spike’s hair on the back of his head, his sideburns, fringe, etc.
• The fringe gives Spike’s hair extra layers and extra lift– “How does Spike get that perfect every day?”
• Eyes give the statue life and pose–Spike isn’t just looking straight, his eyes are angled upward with his head angled slightly downward so that he’s looking at eye level
• The pose, eyes and expression on Spike all play to Spike’s personality
• Spike’s suit isn’t perfectly straight in the back–it has angles and creases and bends in it; anime-like angular lines on shirt instead of rounded ones
• Suit has sculpted line, creases, folds and stitching to give it a 3-D look; decided to add details such as the stitching based on fan response in the F4F OCC Facebook Group
• Anime-styled black lines painted on throughout the suit, from top to bottom, to highlight the fact that this character comes from an anime and keep with the anime styling
• Left pocket bulges out from the front because Spike’s left hand is in the pocket
• Subtle sculpting of the folds on the suit jacket need to make sense physically
• Spike’s anatomy is crazy–he has really, really long legs; Jet has “normal” legs while Spike’s are super-thin and super-long
• The proportions on this Cowboy Bebop Spike figure are crazy–but also really true to Spike himself
• You can see the individually painted fingernails on Spike’s right hand (his left is in his pocket)
• One of the things that people always argue about is whether Spike has black or green hair, so F4F said “Why not both?”; as such, Spike’s hair is black with green-tinted highlights; it’s hard to see in the studio’s white lighting, but there’s definitely green tints. Does it need to be tinted more green? F4F would love to hear collector feedback on that.
• Spike’s boots are a lovely similarly-colored blue
• Spike’s eye pupils are subtly different from each other–one is darker than the other, accurate to the anime
• Spike’s cigarette itself has a slight bend in it–not just straight; tilted to look like Spike is taking a drag of it

55:32 Dabid Kuhrt — “Did you get any resistance from the licensor about including a cigarette for Spike?”

• Absolutely no comments or concerns from the licensor about having the cigarette or not having it
• Smoking has social stigmas now that it didn’t have 20-30 years ago, but Spike was created 20 years ago
• Spike often has a cigarette in the anime and so his statue does as well
• The cigarette is white at the top and orange at the “butt” end
• F4F has no issues with doing a statue with a cigarette, since Spike smokes in the anime
• “No cigarette manufacturer came up to us and said ‘You must put our brand on that cigarette’–this is like our own brand of cigarette! First 4 Cigarettes!”

 57:57 Jake Meyer — “Regarding the images surrounding the base: How were they decided on?”

• There are beautiful images going around the circular base (like a film roll)
• Official Cowboy Bebop logo is sculpted on the top of the base; the base itself is matte with the logo having a shine on the actual logo
• Originally there was a slightly differently-styled base that was about 45 degrees and sloping down, with no images on the base
• Alex heard people discussing the idea of the base being round and having images going around the base, and decided to stop and revise the base to incorporate those features
• Spike’s base has a blue stripe, while Jet’s has green–this is consistent with the anime
• Jet’s base will be exactly the same size and have the exact same spatial footprint
• First4Figures was given a lot of official artwork to work with and given permission to turn it into the silhouette style seen on the base
• If the images were in color (not just blue and black), they wouldn’t blend as well and would distract away from the statue

1:05:27 Ben Carpenter — “Thoughts on going beyond just the planned 4 statues (and Ein)? Julia and Vicious?”

• Alex would love to keep on going and have the line go beyond the crew–First 4 Figures will keep on going if the fans keep supporting the line
• Ships like the Swordfish and Hammerhead–everything is on the table

1:07:00 — Measurements:

• The First 4 Figures Spike statue is about four and a half 330 mL cans tall
• Height: 20.5″
• Width: 10″
• Depth: 10″
• Weight: 2.44 kg (5.4 lbs.)
• Heavier than PVC figure collectors might expect, since Spike is made out of actual resin and not PVC
• Jet Black is chunkier and will consequently be a lot heavier
• Spike’s gun is very accurate to the anime and even has the rifling on the inside of the tip

1:12:00 — Cowboy Bebop Spike Exclusive Version:

• The Exclusive version comes with both the regular edition’s right arm (with gun) as well as an exclusive interchangeable pointing arm
• Both arms have a magnetized peg to attach to the body; arms are cut in a way that there’s no seam and blends in really well
• This is the iconic pose from right at the end of the anime
• Spike has his jacket and is covered in blood at the end of the anime, but this pose can also mean “Hey, you!” or is just pointing at someone–the beauty of this pose is that it could be a reference to the end of the anime or just Spike being cool–it’s open to interpretation; you can make what you want of this pose
• Not pointing straight forward–there’s more of a bend to the arm; gives it more flow and less stiffness
• Height and width of the exclusive are exactly the same, but the depth is slightly longer because of the pointing arm–increases the depth to 11″ instead of 10″

…And that’s it for the Making of Cowboy Bebop Spike Documentary and Q&A Recap! Did you learn anything interesting for this, #F4Fans? Remember–the Exclusive Spike statue is available now only via the First 4 Figures website! Will you be ordering one?