You’ve waited a few extra days for it, and the *COMPLETE* F4F Q&A #106 Recap is finally here! Get the answers to these life-changing questions and more in the First 4 Figures Q&A #106 Recap:

ARE there likely to be Yu-Gi-Oh PVCs and/or color variants?

HOW many likes and reactions does the new Modern Amy Rose sneak peek need to keep Alex’s interest?

WHEN will the TT polls occur for Noragami, Apex Legends and Monster Rancher?

WHAT animals would Alex and Chock each add to the Chinese Zodiac?

IS a Banjo-Tooie statue definitely in the works?

WILL the Banjo-Kazooie statue be fully produced before the end of the year?

HAS enough interest been shown yet for Kill La Kill and/or Gurren Lagann statues?

DO Alex and Chock throw paper airplanes at each other in the office?

Announcements and the Week in Review:

• Sunday Funday shirts and F4F logo goods have now been added to the First 4 Figures Red Bubble store! You can get the design on various items and pieces of apparel.
• Have heard feedback pros and cons on RedBubble; gathering data right now and continuing on this testing phase with RedBubble; not married to the company and can always sell F4F goods via other websites later on
• Would like to move into branded items of First 4 Figures statues in the future; take for example the art prints done so far which are 100% based on the actual statues F4F has made
• Crash Bandicoot was the piece that pushed First4Figures into doing Definitive Editions because of the complaints about the acrylic crates–“thanks to you guys bitching about it so much”; will offer Definitive Editions when it makes sense in the future and can also offer Companion Pieces (such as Mini Aku Aku Masks); people in the marketplace who have received them have been positive about Crash’s acrylic crates right now nonetheless
• T-Shirt design suggestion thread being reopened again now that T-Shirts are finally being made available with new designs each week
• Amaterasu PVC is still in development and being tweaked, but the revisions can’t be made until the factories reopen later in February after Chinese New Year ends; looking forward to getting Ammy PVC up for sale as a lot of people have been asking for it
• Hong Kong Chinese New Year is finished and the office is officially open, but the factories are still closed for the next 2-3 weeks and the F4F China division including painters; CS tickets may have a bit of a backlog due to CNY holidays
• It can be overwhelming for Alex to sit down and go through all of his personal messages on Facebook; he doesn’t have the up-to-date information that CS has to quickly respond to personal requests
• True Form Midna will be focused on right after Chinese New Year
• Alex hates February
• Bowser will be the focus of his factory soon as Varia Suit wraps up and leaves the factory
• Mario on Yoshi will be the definitive piece in the Mario line to date
• Nothing mentioned on anything Zelda recently
• Still need to decide whether to increase the edition size on Bowser EX from 1000 to 1100 or not; if the edition size increases because of the GamesCom orders then refunds will be offered
• Banjo-Kazooie Exclusive pre-orders are only open until February 15th (this Friday)–this is the Last Chance Week! There will be no extension of this PO, so make sure to order if you want this
• Meta-Ridley EX pre-orders going until at least February 22nd
• Will not be attending MCM London in April; it might be possible to possibly do the second MCM London show later in the year; might be worth attending to showcase and sell the additional new PVCs that will be available by that point in the year
• Alex doesn’t focus on aftermarket prices that statues sell for; F4F’s policies are meant to make it harder to scalp piece, as the company is not about low numbers–don’t want people to buy statues for the wrong reasons such as increasing secondary market values; want the main reason people buy statues to be for love of the character
• Phoenix Wright, Mimic, Shovel Knight Player 2, Spyro EX, Alphonse, Psycho Mantis, Tekken Marshall Law Exclusives are all still available for order on the F4F Website
• On an ordinary day in the F4F offices, you’ll hear the quiet sounds of work, work, working, and then occasionally the sound of Alex cursing
• Alex is completing overhauling the pose for the Dark Magician to resubmit for approval, as he thinks F4F can do better than the first design that was approved
• The whole Yakuza Kiryu Kazuma statue is being reworked, as Alex thought the old concept was shit
• Alex wants to see creativity with the concepts of statues and not just concepts with pretty lighting and boring poses; base needs to be considered at the time when the design is being made because the base can have a large effect on the pose; it’s also important for statues to be affordable and practical; wants to challenge the “museum poses” style except when pricing dictates design (such as with Cowboy Bebop)
• “Obviously I’m not going to have Phoenix Wright jumping over the fucking courtroom table”
• My Hero Academia is a good example for where statues need to have creative poses and not just museum poses with the characters standing there; dynamic doesn’t necessarily mean crazy action poses–just not something so simple Alex could repose it himself from a standard T-Pose
• A lot of the times, statues should be telling a story and not just be standing around holding a gun out or whatever
• For those who don’t have the space or financial means for the humongous Artorias Life Size Bust coming up, a smaller GSB (Grand Scale Bust) will also be offered

TTs and The King of the Ring III:

• TT 138 Gungrave: 156 No, 25 Yes
• TT 139 Sword Art Online Kirito: 264 No, 122 Yes; Alex is surprised by the lack of votes here
• The next set of TTs has been determined by votes and reactions during recent Fundays
• TT 140 Monster Rancher (Monster Farm in Japan) — This Week (2/14)!
• TT 141 Apex Legends — In 2 Weeks!
• TT 142 Noragami Anime — In 3 Weeks! [*squeeeeeee*]
• #F4Funday is this week’s hashtag for a chance to win Rewards Points next week
• Sonic Tornado defeated Meta Knight in the third match of KOTR III; 35 Players remain in King of the Ring III
• Match #4 is Light Suit Samus vs. Ryo; 100% of contestants predicted Light Suit Samus would win; most likely outcome is all but 13 entrants being eliminated because of most players choosing the Arwing to achieve more votes than Ryo (Ryo already has more votes than the Arwing did)
• Match #5 will be Spyro Resin vs. Link on Epona: Alex thinks Link on Epona will win, but Spyro will get the most votes of any Round 1 loser

The Q&A!:

• Chocks think that the Solaire SD Exclusives will come with USB charger cords, since the USB port has been added to them
• Extra colors such as pink and purple won’t be added to Shiranui’s tentacles
• Cloud (Final Fantasy VII) and Pokemon are the statues Alex would make if he could make anything with no licensing issues; Chocks would pick Streets of Rage
• Don’t know when Rider Link will go up for pre-order
• “I know you guys think we aren’t doing anything on it [Zelda], but we are, and it’s exciting–but there’s no point in announcing stuff when we haven’t done stuff that we announced already”
• The only change that may possibly be done to Meta-Ridley is the lining details on the wings
• Difficult for Alex to do much for Chinese New Year with the four kiddies and baby Clementine still so young
• Panda would be the animal Alex would pick to add to the Chinese Zodiac; Chocks would pick a dinosaur “Year of the T. rex”
• Alex needs to look at Banjo’s eyes again–he’ll make a judgment call looking at him in person; thinks that his eyes might look off in the pictures, but thinks they’re aligned properly as-is right now; Banjo and Kazooie’s eyes shouldn’t be looking at exactly the same angle since they’re in different places spatially; it’s easier to understand seeing the in-hand piece than looking at Banjo in a video
• Ada Wong figure: “Would be lovely, but unfortunately a Resident Evil license was really difficult to get to do characters. Maybe stances have changed since then.”
• Would love to do Leon, Jill, Claire statues from Resident Evil if Capcom would allow it; as of the last time RE was discussed, Capcom only would allow monster statues
• Banjo-Kazooie production will hopefully start right after Chinese New Year; “sooner than later”
• Next week is reservation week for Solid Snake SD PVCs!
• Won’t have the exclusive box for Solid Snake SD ready to show during the pre-order, but will be of a similar design and quality as the Dark Souls SD EX boxes; we’ve already seen the exclusive and variants of this SD Snake during GamesCom 2018 last summer
• Have to rework the payment system in order to facilitate gift cards being used; being worked on now
• It’s unfortunate that it’s taken so long to put out announced Zelda statues–no point in announcing more new pieces that are even farther away
• Gift cards will probably be a one-time usage thing and not something that can be recharged
• Development team is so busy doing other stuff; hasn’t really been any movement on Aika; “Where’s the Sega fans at?”; sounds like a lot of work involved to make something that ultimately won’t do very well
• Yes, there will definitely be a Banjo-Tooie statue made “later, later, later on” in the future
• Multiple Expressions for Busts (ie Grinning/Serious expressions for Guts)? “Hell no! That’s like half the bloody piece! Are you kidding me right now?!”
• Absolutely interested in Berserk True Form and SD PVCs
• Almost enough interest shown for Kill La Kill statues; not enough shown yet for Gurren Lagann
• Want to see how something niche like Oki Wolf performs before committing to more minor Okami characters
• Production videos for Shiranui will be posted after production starts
• Authentication absolutely still applies to regular editions
• Poll for Mumbo-Jumbo and Gruntilda will be updated to reflect new, increased vote goals
• Uka Uka Mask needs another poll to catch Alex’s interest again; maybe the poll can be posted now that Crash is entering the marketplace
• Believe Meta-Ridley will be at the Snake/Guts/Ornstein factory
• Bayonetta guns pre-order possibly in the first half of 2019
• Will post either a TT or an official Alex post for King Dedede
• Mumbo Jumbo needs a bit more TLC; Gruntilda not likely with the votes she has right now
• Would consider some sort of cross-promotion with Capcom on the Phoenix Wright Trilogy to hopefully improve sales of the Phoenix Wright statue
• Shirts and hoodies are available in the Red Bubble store now
• Sonic and Tails diorama has been sitting around unpainted for about two months now, so we won’t see it anytime soon; need to get at least two more painters on staff after Chinese New Year to prevent bottlenecks
• Alex and Chock had not thrown paper airplanes at each other today, but Alex thinks it’s a great idea
• Not sure which statue in development right now has had the longest development window–usually think about that when making the documentaries
• Yu-Gi-Oh PVCs neither confirmed nor not confirmed; a strong possibility if things go smoothly
• There will be at least one and maybe two color variants for Dark Magician
• Chockles would be interested in what the top 10 female characters F4F could do based on the licenses already held are: “That sounds like a great Funday post I’ll do!” — Alex
• Banjo Kazooie Jiggy base is 9.5″ by 9.5″ by 1.5″
• Alex saw the first Mini Crystal Dragon in metal right before the factory closed for Chinese New Year
• Will compare sales of Classic Amy Rose PVC by GNF Toyz to see how she fares in comparison to other characters in the line; this data could help gauge how well a Classic Amy Rose resin statue could fare
• Would like to see the new Modern Amy Rose sneak peek realistically get triple however many likes and reactions the previous sneak peek got (so the new sneak should have around 300 Likes to get Alex’s attention)
• Horizon Zero Dawn is on the list for future TTs; “But it ain’t no Noragami”
• #1 Statues are kept in the Vault in China and still boxed so they retain their original value and aren’t used [sarcasm]; “If shit goes wrong and I can’t afford to pay the staff’s salaries anymore, I can put my #1 statues up for sale”
• Have already made the design for the Uka Uka Mask; “let’s get those Aku Aku Masks out first”
• Not sure if War would be better in a dynamic or museum pose; depends on if a version on horses would be done as well
• F4F artists don’t need to do any rigging in order to move statue concepts around for posing
• Would like to have Crash Team Racing statue up for pre-order by the time the game launches in June if possible
• Will never allow purchasing Rewards Points directly, since collectors could just buy their levels that way to get higher loyalty bonuses
• Alex hasn’t done a thing about plush in 2019 yet
• Only Oki coming up for Okami now besides the new resin/PVC Amaterasu
• No new developments on Faye, Ivy or Dante lately
• Will keep asking for Pokemon at the Licensing Expo every year
• Banjo-Kazooie statue will “definitely be done this year” since it’s being produced at its own factory
• Should still be “quite easy to convert” for those joining the Solid Snake EX statue Wait List right now
• Finalized Guts almost approved, just needs a few more changes after Chinese New Year
• Nito PO is a long time away–need to figure out the best way to do the hair
• Skull Knight is being wrapped up right now; in final stages of painting stage

…And that’s a wrap! The long-awaited Solid Snake SD PVC figure will go up for sale on the F4F website alongside Q&A #107 this Friday, February 15th! Who’s coming back to order their own SD Snake in just a few days, and are you interested in any of the variants of Snake as well?

And a quick PSA: I’ll be en route to New York City for the 2019 Toy Fair during the 2/15 Q&A, so that Recap will be delayed a few hours (or days, it’s always hard to say) since I’ll be traveling. Promise made that the recap will occur, though–and it will be worth the wait as always!