It was nearly eight months ago to the day when First 4 Figures stunned their fandom at GamesCom 2018 by unexpectedly revealing the all-new Companion Series of statues, which would begin with the pair of Mini Aku Aku Mask statues that debuted at the event. It’s been an agonizing two-thirds of a year wait, but at last, the 1:4 scale resin Crash Bandicoot’s partner (of a sort) is ready to launch: the F4F Mini Aku Aku Masks Exclusive statues go up for order today! And that’s not all–dozens of colorful collector queries will be answered and more!

Announcements and the Week in Review:

• Reservations will open up at the conclusion of the show for the Crash Bandicoot Mini Aku Aku Masks!
• The weather in Hong Kong has been absolutely disgusting yesterday and today.
• Congratulation to F4F Shipping Guru Sunny for becoming a father for the very first time!
• If anyone got an E-Mail from CS on the 2nd of June 2010, let Alex know if it’s garbage or not–because Alex’s wife Kanako was back to working CS that day three hours after giving birth!
• Updates on Crystal Dragon will be part of the week in review!
• 700 square feet apartment for a family of 3 or 4 is a pretty decent size in Hong Kong
• School classes are much smaller in the UK, allowing students to think a little bit more freely with subjectively graded assessments such as essays possible, whereas in Hong Kong everything is more “Yes/No” objective assessments
• All Might PVC is looking good
• Alex would steal pesos from his father as a teenager to go play this crazy rip-off Street Fighter game in an arcade in the Philippines where you could have like 50 haduokens on-screen at once [hyperbole]; consequently Alex was disappointed the first time he played the real Street Fighter on the SNES
• Torch Torch Ring and T-Shirts open until May 9th on the website
• Mario on Yoshi orders will be closing after this weekend if 1000 units have been sold
• Phoenix Wright, Alphonse, Psycho Mantis, Mimic, Conker, Warp Star Kirby, Guts, Shovel Knight Player 2, Meta-Ridley, Snake SDs are all still up for order on the F4F Website
• Berserk Guts will be closing for orders very soon–get those orders in if you want him! Last Chance Week should be coming up!
• Once all the confirmed orders for Spyro PVC EX are shipped out, any remaining units will go up for sale as “In Stock” on the website
• It is a bank holiday weekend in Hong Kong, so don’t expect any replies to tickets until next Tuesday, April 23rd
• Alex looking at old designs First 4 Figures had started for Cynder and Spyro from Legend of Spyro: “This is shit.”
• Want to see 800+ votes of interest for LoS Spyro and Cynder; new poll currently has about 420 Likes after a week, but really need to see 800–Alex is watching!
• Neo-Cortex is pretty much done, and Jet Pack Crash is eventually coming along as well
• Cowboy Bebop Spike is ready to start shipping out to Australia/Asia; the DDT Drop Test was interesting! Box is very small!
• Aku Aku Mask and Shovel Knights are approved to start the packing process now
• Alex feels like things are firing on all cylinders with production now!
• Warp Star Kirby and Crystal Dragons have been given the thumbs up to start production!
• Alex will be going at the end of the month to check out how Bowser is doing in production
• Shiranui is now in production and has tons of holes in it for all of the wires necessary for the expansive light-up feature
• Guts is in production now with pre-production samples
• Normally Alex and Chocks have a big dinner before the stream, and that puts them to sleep
• Banjo-Kazooie is in production and firing on all cylinders
• Need to submit Shiranui clear water base to Capcom
• Sonic & Tails diorama is looking great; looking difficult structurally; the arms hold up a lot of weight so they need to be made in die-cast metal to make the statue structurally stable on the shelf for years
• Sonic TF PVC has been painted and the factory is now starting the tooling process
• Before and after development shots of Soul Calibur Ivy showed this week; still being worked on; will add more of a determined/sexy expression
• Cowboy Bebop Faye is looking great now; getting the pose wrapped up now with Jet’s pre-order coming up shortly
• The Amaterasu Life Size Bust drop test is embarrassing–“don’t check it out”
• Neo-Cortex pre-order will be in the next few months; want to give Crash Bandicoot fans’ wallets
• Alex is really looking forward to trying out Sekiro in front of the club on a stream after hearing how difficult the game is; can say that playing the game is “research”; there’s no license or anything like that right now–Alex really just wants to play it; F4F can take more of an interest in Sekiro as a license if a lot of people watch him stream playing the game; research for if First 4 Figures ever gets the license
• Alex can’t ever play a game without the mindset of what characters would make good statues, so the Twitch livestreams of him playing games will be called “Let’s PlaySearch”
• Revised True Form Midna! Thickness and pointiness of hood changed; more 3-D belt on dress that’s less sunk in; more natural abs and belly button; roundness of breasts improved on; still not 100% happy with feet and will keep working on that; head tilted slightly more; Alex isn’t happy enough with Midna to go into production with her yet, but she’s getting there
• Dante completely redone from scratch and is looking much better than it did before
• Lots of Castlevania goodness being worked on in the background
• Already have the license for My Hero Academia; displayed prototypes of three All Might PVC statues at Emerald City Comic Con 2019 last month
• Chocks has no tolerance for someone who might be “jumpingly challenged” in Shovel Knight
• The Wait List for Bowser EX is very long

Temptation Thursdays (TT Polls):

• TT 146 Starfox: 417 Votes; 258 Yes, 159 No for Fox McCloud; this is a main Nintendo character and really needs more votes. Keep on rallying if you want Fox!
• TT 147 Transistor: 254 Votes; 83 Yes, 171 No; Not many votes at all–maybe not enough indy players in the club?
• TT 148 Assassination Classroom anime poll next week!
• This week’s hashtag for a chance to win F4F Rewards Points Next Week is #F4FAKU
• Voting is open now the Spring F4F Photo Contest! Go vote for the winner!

The Q&A:

• Pre-orders for Deku resin likely this year!
• No Zelda info this week
• Crystal Dragon approved to go into production at the factory today
• Nailing Yu-Gi-Oh statues right now–Alex looked at them with fresh eyes and is much happier with them now [Blue Eyes White Dragon and Dark Magician known in development]
• Mini Aku Aku Mask Combo Packs will ship in separate boxes
• Shaman King? “Rally the fans!”
• May add F4F logos to the True Form Midna display case
• Will have the new studio set up so Alex & Chock can just jump into a game of Mario Kart or Bomberman or Soul Calibur
• Jet pre-order will be soon-ish; this is a priority now that Spike is wrapping up
• Didn’t end up using any of the Faye poses that were proposed and voted on
• Starfox really needs to be in the top 10 TTs for consideration
• Side characters from Zelda such as Makar? “Interesting.”; always like to see how the Zelda character polls are doing
• Amaterasu LSB isn’t on the shipping calendar yet for the US because it’s not ready; will be on the calendar as soon as it is
• 1:6 scale statue with diorama in the works; maybe not massive
• F4F Behind the Scenes Art Book has always been on the list of things to do; lots of content documented now
• Alex has played a little bit of Soulsborne games before, but Sekiro is the first Alex is really actively trying to play
• There’s no special way to break the news if F4F doesn’t get the Persona 5 license; it’ll be acknowledged in the same way as Nier 2B was; there are never any guarantees that any license can be obtained
• Thought about attending MCM London again this year; also thinking about NYCC 2019 in that time period
• Shiranui coming in a couple months; production is at the early stages now
• Mini Eggs or Creme Eggs? “Creme Eggs without a shadow of a doubt!” — Alex Davis
• No plans for any more Transformers statues
• Sweet or savory snacks? “Sweet, baby!” — Alex
• Target number of votes depends on the franchise, but needs to be Top 10 in terms of new franchises
• Rathalos needs a lot more than 450 votes to be taken seriously
• Samus Life Size Bust? “You never know! The problem with Samus, though, is you can’t have her without her shoulder cannons. And those are even bigger than her head, and that’s crazy. I could probably see a life-size helmet, but not a life-size bust.” — Alex Davis
• Spyro Color Variant PVCs have been approved! Just not sure what should be done with them! All at once, one at a time?
• New website is still being worked on! Working on layout of new studio still
• Nothing new to share about Alphonse
• Alex changed his mind about a new Fullmetal Alchemist statue every 6 months–it will be longer
• May or may not have already looked into some ideas for a Super Shadow pose
• Had no problems shipping the die-cast Sif swords to Europe
• Not sure of timeframe of resins based on PVC sculpts going up for order
• Sonic & Tails diorama and Sonic PVC will be the only F4F Sonic products in 2019, although there will also be more of the GNF Toyz PVCs
• Neo-Cortex coming along very, very nicely
• Trigun on the TT list
• Sonic & Tails diorama was always classic version; could always do a modern later
• Don’t believe Mario on Yoshi hit 1,000 sales or else it would be Last Chance Week
• Alucard factory starting on Psycho Mantis soon!
• Ornstein probably ready to start packaging in about a month
• Going to see Bowser at the end of the month
• Is anyone interested in the Mini Aku Aku Masks who doesn’t have Crash resin?
• Alex doesn’t feel the rules of the OCC are becoming too strict; if you’re not interested in the way the club is set up, it’s up to you if you stay or not
• Darksiders War: no answer on if F4F would go museum or dynamic if this ever happened
• Alex doesn’t think the collecting community can handle something larger than 1:6 for an unproven franchise like Darksiders; 1:4s are getting to be just too expensive for collectors now
• USB slot on True Form Midna base
• “Aika PO? Probably Q2 20…2… we’ll get to it.”
• Warp Star Kirby LEDs will be twinkling and have always-on mode; don’t need a dimmer switch

Mini Aku Aku Masks Exclusives & Pre-Order Details:

• Reservations will open up at the conclusion of the show for the Crash Bandicoot Mini Aku Aku Masks!
• Alex loves the diorama look of this statue
• Alex didn’t know the feathers for the Mini Aku Aku Mask were all connected
• Can see foliage and leaves on base
• Vibrantly colored; managed to get all of the detail of the larger Aku Aku Life Size Masks into the Minis

The Making of Mini Aku Aku Masks Documentary:

• The new studio debuts in this documentary! Congratulations, Alex and Chocks!!
• Adam Elgammal: “What made you decide to do a Mini Aku Aku Mask?”
• Goes back to when the resin Crash Bandicoot statue launched; the Exclusive Crash came with acrylic-styled crates that gave a bit of 3-D depth, but many collectors were underwhelmed with the acrylic crates; which planted the seeds in Alex & Chocks’ minds to offer Companion Statues for hardcore fans that will add to and enhance other statues; can’t expect acrylic crates with the Exclusive Crash at the same price-point, but could offer something crazy and complicated in resin in 3-D separately rather than as part of the Exclusive statue at the same price
• Could have made the resin Aku Aku Mask at the same time as Crash resin and called it the Definitive Edition, but having missed the boat on making a DE led to the concept of Companion Pieces that would be available after another statue but enhance it
• Having technical difficulties playing the documentary video from the studio… no audio… stand by…
• Knew exactly what they were doing making this Mini Aku Aku Mask, since they had already made mistakes and corrected them on the Life Size Aku Aku Mask
• Feathers are exactly the same on the Life Size and Mini Aku Akus
• First documentary in the new studio setup; new lighting behind Alex and Chocks; Alex has blue behind him and Chock has purple–inspired by the blue and purple feathers on the Aku Aku Masks
• The way Aku Aku Mask is attached to the base gives the impression of it “floating” like it does in the game
• Need to determine if any of the foliage will be converted to PU or PVC for shipping to ensure no breakage occurs; different types and colors of plants around the base; all the colors and details make for a feast for the eyes
• The size allowed for a more complicated base than the larger LS Masks did; Alex is glad they didn’t opt to just shrink down the larger version for this one
• Alessio Bucci: “It’s called ‘Mini’… but how big is it?”
• Height: 16″ tall (40 cm); Width: 8″ (20 cm); Depth: 7.5″ (19 cm)
• About 3.5 cans tall
• Weight: 1.8 kg (about 4 lbs.)
• Brendan Rastello: “What, if any, details are different from the life-size Aku Aku Mask?”
• The two sizes of Aku Aku Masks are different sculpts–the Mini isn’t just a “lazy” shrunken down version of the original Life-Size one
• Main difference between the two editions is that the Exclusive Life-Size Masks have the “Ooga-Booga!” sound effect, while the Mini does not; both versions have the Exclusive Light-Up LED Eyes
• Brenton Friedli: “Will you be making a Ghost Mini Aku Aku Mask statue?”
• Didn’t make a Ghost Aku Aku Mask, but are making a Golden Metallic variant only available on the F4F Website; rally the fans and make some noise if you want a Ghost variant
• Combo Packs of the two Aku Aku Masks will be available as well as individuals of each
• Strongly recommend getting the resin Crash and the Mini Aku Aku Masks together, as they really enhance each other
• Companion piece for Spyro down the road possible
• Kelly Crews: “Will companion pieces be a continuing series in the future?”
• Absolutely considering that; future companion series pieces are already in the works; Would a Mini Uka Uka Mask in-scale with Neo-Cortex make sense?
• Numbering: Aku Aku Masks are a companion series statue and not a “main” release in the Crash Bandicoot series, so it’s not necessary to buy them to retain your number from the Crash resin statue; Neo-Cortex will be the next “main” release in the line; however, if you have authenticated Crash resin and purchase Aku Aku Mini, will you get the same number on your Mini Aku Aku base; if you have not authenticated a Crash, the Mini Aku Akus will have no number on the bottom of the base–it will just state the edition size
• Pre-orders open from 19th of April to 24th of May; Validation will be on April 26th
• Pricing: Standard/Exclusive/Golden are all $214.99 (the depost it $21)
• Shipping Cost: $35 USD to US/EU; $55 USD to Canada; $75 to AUS; $85 USD to Mexico/Egypt/Israel/etc. for each statue
• Reservations will open up at the conclusion of the show for the Crash Bandicoot Mini Aku Aku Masks! Stay tuned for all the details as the documentary continues…

…And that’s a wrap! What do you think, F4Fans? Has the extensive documentary detailing the Mini Aku Aku masks convinced you to place your own order for one (or both!) of them this week? And did anything else you learned on this week’s show capture your attention and imagination?