F4F Q&A #117 Recap: Jet Black PO! Avatar! Super Shadow! Horizon Zero Dawn!

Spike Spiegel is preparing to begin shipping out now, but he won’t be alone for long: the First 4 Figures Jet Black statue is now up for order! But not only will F4F be revealing the final prototype of the Exclusive Jet Black figure and opening up reservations, but they’ll also be answering hard-hitting questions such as:

WHICH character’s lack of success in the Avatar/Korra character poll has completely taken Alex by surprise?

WHAT statues did Alex inspect the final production versions of and do drop tests for at the factory this week?

WHEN will Bowser be ready to ship?

IS Super Shadow the Hedgehog 100% confirmed now to be done as a statue?

HOW are the TT polls for Horizon Zero Dawn and Assassination Classroom faring?

…and more! Can’t watch the live-stream where you are? Stay tuned, because the F4F Q&A #117 Recap is now LIVE!

Announcements and The Week in Review:

Bowser is only going to be ready when he’s on that boat, at which point he’ll be added to the shipping calendar. Alex will be at the factory next week, and it’s possible some packing could begin if all is well!
Will talk about Jet Black and reveal all details/pricing info at noon EST; reservations will last for an entire week with validation for low numbers next Friday, 5/10
Phil is away today and will be away on Monday as well
Alex actually had a dream about Sekiro this week; Let’s PlaySearch #4 will be this Sunday; “there’s gonna be tears, but they’re not gonna be mine! The OCC is gonna cry and cry and cry, because they’re not going to get any extra points!”; Alex was allowed to grind offline this week and vows no deaths in Sekiro this week
There hasn’t been much talk about doing the Swordfish or Bebop ship from Cowboy Bebop–be sure to rally for these in the club if you want them during the unlimited hype period starting today!
Pre-orders for Boom8 Sonic Combo Pack of Amy Rose & Super Sonic will close after the stream today
Last Chance Week for Guts closes today after the stream as well!
Torch Torch pre-orders are open until next Thursday 5/9 for the Dark Souls rings and T-Shirts
Mini Aku Aku Masks Exclusive pre-orders will be open until May 24th
Mario on Yoshi, Mimic, Phoenix Wright, Alphonse, Psycho Mantis, Meta-Ridley, Warp Star Kirby, Solid Snake SD and Shovel Knight Player 2 are all still up for order, but Shovel Knight P2 and Warp Star Kirby will both be closing for production shortly!
Public holidays in HK: May 1st and May 13th
Congratulations to the first winners of the first F4F Photo Contest run by the admin team and organized by The Law! Thanks, Law! Points will be sent soon via PM
Next F4F OCC contest is upcoming and being worked on behind the scenes, with a lower barrier to entry and easier contest prompt
Alex died more in Sekiro Let’s PlaySearch #3 than in episodes 1 and 2, something he thought he didn’t think could be possible; “Sword-Bitch” paid dividends for OCC members in the form of killing Alex many times and awarding members a multitude of free rewards points
Avatar The Last Airbender passed 1,000 ‘Yes’ votes in its TT, which meant that it went straight to a character poll; the character poll went “okay”, but Alex is really really really surprised that Korra is not even in the top 3 characters in the character poll; in less than one week Aang is at 700 votes and Korra isn’t even at 200 votes yet
[Dabid’s Unsolicited Opinion: Korra Seasons 3 and 4 are better than any seasons of Last Airbender in my eyes. Air-tight writing and so emotional and philosophical. Personally, I’ve never understood why it didn’t catch on like Airbender besides the show being less “fun”.]
Chan Smith has promised to eat a shoe if Alex has zero deaths in Let’s PlaySearch #4
Varia Suit has been delayed further in the US because of how difficult the project is and how long it takes the factory to perfectly produce each piece; only about 30 pieces made on a good day on a daily average; still have to make another 1000; on a bad day only 5-7 might get made
Super Shadow is 100% confirmed; Alex is confident that there are ways to make the piece less risky and is 100% convinced that F4F can get Super Shadow done in a really nice way; not just about color variants
Size comparison sneak peek of Artorias Life-Size Bust and Grand Scale Bust shown this week
Spike transit test this week and preparing to head to the Asia warehouse
Crystal Dragon Minis are absolutely going to be sold separately; to be determined what color the individually sold Crystal Dragon Minis will be
Video is shown of the completed Aku Aku Masks and Shovel Knights at the factory; Alex is pleased with the Aku Aku Masks and Shovel Knight final production statues and is ready for them to be packed up and sent to Australia/Asia
Authenticate your Spike when you receive him to get the same number for your Jet Black–but you should still Validate next week to get the Signature Edition of Jet
Shovel Knights and Aku Aku Masks pass the DDDT (Double Dreaded Drop Test) without casualties, looseness or breakages! They’re ready to be packed up and sent to Australia/Asia!

Temptation Thursday TT Polls and King of the Ring IV:

Assassination Classroom TT: 66 Yes, 259 No; Not many fans rallying for this; Could revisit for Koro-Sensei another time
Horizon Zero Dawn TT: 527 Votes; 358 ‘Yes’, 169 ‘No’; Keep on rallying!
Steam World Dig TT Next Week!
Anime Soul Eater TT in 2 Weeks!
#F4FJET is this week’s hashtag for a chance to win 500 Rewards Points next week!
Brenton Friedli eliminated the first week of King of the Ring IV! Alas!
KOTR IV Week 2 Summary: Ornstein defeated Nightmare in Match 1; Alphonse is on the fast track to defeat Vyse in Match 2; Vyse’s vote count has been steadily increasing and it’s possible he could get more votes than Nightmare and surpass him in the final rankings; All Might Casual vs. Saitama next week with 70% of entrants picking All Might

The Q&A!:

No images of the Yu-Gi-Oh line yet, but it’s something very special
Watford is Alex’s home team–“go Hornets!”
Not at the stage for the Ornstein drop test–Alex doesn’t even know why Ornstein is on the shipping calendar already
Any vehicle lines in the future? “If Captain Falcon can’t get the numbers, could his ship do it?”
The shipping schedule on the calendar on the left-hand side is what’s locked in; what is on the shipping calendar is what F4F is planning for, but nothing is guaranteed until it’s on the boat; the production progress updates are on the right-hand side of the calendar; Sunny updates the factory as he gets information from the factories
No time-frame for revealing unannounced licenses; quite a lot of potentials F4F is looking at
Alex already has 16 licensor meetings on his schedule for next month’s Las Vegas Licensing Expo
Alex is going to E3 afterward this year as well, so he’ll be able to hit up some connections he has there as well as at the Licensing Expo
Alex saw footage of the Sonic movie last summer at the Licensing Expo and again at Gamescom; mixed responses to the public trailer released this week for the movie has led to the character design of Sonic the Hedgehog being reworked; this has quite interesting implications from a merchandising point of view
Original plan was to launch Sonic PVC for Sonic’s birthday, but will get Sonic & Tails up for pre-order around Sonic’s birthday and have Sonic PVC in shops and on shelves in the marketplace around the launch of the actual film; why not take advantage of the hype from the movie for Sonic?
Getting better at not announcing licenses too early in development so there’s not a huge gap between announcing the license and showing anything from it
Chocks has never tried any Southern Comfort, but knows what it is
Of course there will be a character poll if the Horizon Zero Dawn character poll meets requirements
Maybe looking to explore other Metal Gear games beyond the first Solid
Stands for additional heads would be good as companion pieces, but F4F doesn’t do additional heads very frequently
Most difficult aspect of a statue? Sometimes the 3-D file makes the face super-easy, and sometimes not so easy. Pose is also sometimes difficult. At the production stage, lights are usually the hardest.
Skull Knight is almost done
Zelda is coming
Nothing to report on Genos
OOT/MM would likely be done in PVC and not resin if F4F ever revisited those lines, since they’re smaller series approximately sized to the TF PVCs
Some ideas for future Modern Sonic statues beyond Super Shadow; should probably do a modern diorama; Alex wants to do modern Knuckles and modern Tails
Order day is Alex’s favorite day of the development process since it’s the most exciting day that’s been built up to for months or years
Will be at Gamescom if all goes smoothly
Do Persona 5 Scramble and Persona 5 Royal get Alex more excited about Persona 5 as a potential license? “Absolutely–no doubt in my mind”
Collectors couldn’t handle the weight of a large die-cast statue
Metal miniatures could evolve into a new series of their own
Would like to look into bronze or marble-looking statues someday; Link on horse would be great to do for that
The Chens are doing alright in the background
No news on black Shovel Knight
Ornstein still at a standstill waiting for approvals
Nito looks shit. Alex isn’t happy with the style for the clothing–is going back to the drawing board for Nito.
Skull Knight PO sooner rather than later
Amaterasu PVC needs better finishing touches done before PO
Ornstein SD’s molds haven’t even started being made yet–PO is months off for him
Modern Amy is paused, not cancelled
Ivy is looking much better and almost ready to submit
Faye 3-D will be submitted for approval next week
Don’t know Guts edition size yet
Wait Lists happen once a week now; Alex doesn’t know what day; Chocks think it’s Monday or Tuesday
Artorias LSB “soon”
Faye looks amazing; Ed looks amazing but not as amazing as Faye yet
Rider Link will be announced “not too soon”
Still thinking about a New York convention this year
Will see what sorts of games people want on the PlaySearch; Alex likes the idea of intense games
Licensors oftentimes don’t have the rights to their music, which is why the music isn’t used in the documentaries; will always try to use actual game/anime music when possible
Card holder updates will be sorted out
Aika? “Tee-hee!”

First 4 Figures Cowboy Bebop Jet Black Statue Documentary:

Brenton Frieldi: “How long have you been working on Jet?”
Actually finished Jet Black quite a long time ago; started working on him at the end of 2016; started Jet Black and Spike Spiegel at the same time and planned to launch Jet first, but restarted Jet’s head and ended up deciding to start the crew with Spike instead and space out the pre-orders in a certain way; first showed Spike and Jet publicly at C3 in Hong Kong in early 2018
Decided to wait and let Spike go through the production process a little bit more and let peoples’ wallets recover before launching Jet Black as well; didn’t want to overburden collectors by having the Jet PO so soon after Spike; wanted to wait until Spike Spiegel was in the home stretch
Faye and Ed & Ein are much further in development now than they were last year, so the gap between Jet and Faye won’t be as gigantic as it would have been if Jet POs had opened last year
Most collectors will want to buy the whole crew
Christian Hernandez: “How did you come to pick this pose? Anything you learned from Spike that you brought over to this piece?”
Pose selected is a “museum” pose and not an action/dynamic pose; pose style needs to match between the various Cowboy Bebop crew members; Faye is chill but doing something kind of sexy; and Ed is doing something a little bit crazy in line with his/her personality; they needed to all look good together naturally
Didn’t want the base for Jet to be bigger than it is for Spike–the whole range will have uniform bases
Jet has a bit of a smirk and his trigger finger is posed as if he’s just fired his gun
One leg is more forward than the other; feet are a bit outward facing for stability
Brendan Rastello: “What did you learn from past anime statues that you’re applying to Jet?”
Shape of the head and the eyebrows was looked at to the millimeter by the OCC–which is why Spike jumped Jet in the release order
Certainly a challenge to get Jet’s unique face right in 3-D
Jet’s body is slightly twisted so you can see the folds and creases accented in his costume
Kneepads are slightly darker; more black compared to the dark blue of the jumpsuit; kneepads have a subtle texture and scuff marks on them
Bottom part of boots is textured differently and a bit more worn than the rest of the boots
When placed next to Spike, found that Jet’s gun looked significantly bigger; had to go back and make Jet’s arm and gun a little bit smaller in order to make the two look accurate displayed next to each other
Chris Hildebrand Jr: “For the base, why did you choose the scenes you did and what was the process in choosing them?“
Wanted to keep things simple with matching bases; Spike has a blue theme to his base and Jet has green, just as in the opening to Cowboy Bebop
Wanted to include Jet’s insignia; represent his bonsai and his vehicle the Hammerhead on the base; everything on the base needed to be representative of the character of Jet Black
Size and Dimensions
20.5″ tall (52 cm)
10″ wide and 10″ deep because everything fits inside of the circular base
Weight: 3kg (significantly heavier than Spike) — about 6.6 pounds
Exclusive version of Jet Black is Jet punching his robot fist into his normal palm; swap-out arms for more display options
Benjamin Robert Riggs: “Who was more challenging: Spike or Jet?”
The hair was really difficult for Spike, but overall he was pretty straight-forward
Made Jet much earlier than Spike in the physical stage, but had to go back and change him to make him look good with Spike; had to create two sets of new arms because they were oversized and a new head
Overall Alex thinks Jet Black was easier, but F4F made some mistakes in early development that they shouldn’t have made in getting Spike and Jet to pair well–won’t repeat these mistakes in development with the rest of the crew
Scales and proportions all match across Spike and Jet; it was so important to First 4 Figures that the whole crew display together perfectly

Jet Black Price and Ordering Info:

Documentary and teaser videos will be live on Youtube once pre-orders open up today
Alex thanks everyone in the club who helped him develop this head
Alex is a massive Jet Black fan and has been shaving his head ever since he saw Cowboy Bebop! He just did a fresh shave last night so he’d match Jet’s style!
Price for Standard and Exclusive Versions are both $374.99
Hopes that the entire crew will be made and Jet will sell as well as Spike has; keeping the price low on this line for that reason; originally thought that Jet would have to be priced much higher, but Spike sold pretty well so the hope is that Jet will do well at the same value pricing
There’s been some accusations that sometimes F4F doesn’t #FinishTheLine, but let’s get this whole series done
12-Month payment plans available with payments at $28/month and a deposit of $37
Shipping Cost: Exactly the same as Spike; $35 USD to United States; $45 USD to EU; $55 USD to Canada; $75 to AUS; $55 to Asia; $85 USD to other regions
Estimated release date is Q2 2020

Cowboy Bebop Jet Black pre-orders open up at the culmination of the livestream! Now that you’ve seen the final prototype of Spike’s partner in non-crime, will you be adding him to your collection, #F4Fans?