F4F Q&A #125 LIVE Recap: Sonic & Tails Diorama Revealed!

Posted on by July 12, 2019

It’s been over two years since First 4 Figures put their last Sonic the Hedgehog resin statue up for pre-order for Sonic’s 25th Anniversary, but it’s at long last time to go fast once again this week: the F4F Sonic and Tails diorama statue will be fully revealed and put up for PO today! And that’s not all! Dozens upon dozens of uncensored collector questions will be answered, we’ll hear updates regarding sneak peeks and production statuses, Alex and Chock will each drink caffeinated beverages and more!

First4Figures Sonic Tails Diorama Variant Combo Pack StatuesFront of Sonic and Tails Diorama F4F

Announcements and The Week in Review:

  • Sonic and Tails diorama pre-orders will begin today after the livestream! All the pre-order details will be revealed starting at noon EST!
  • Timeframes for low numbers for the Amaterasu PVC? “Hahahahahahaha. Nor for the Artorias bust, guys.” — Chocks
  • Castlevania Death is at the 3-D Printing stage
  • Alex’s son Harvey is on summer vacation and is watching the livestream at home and participating in the chat
  • Amaterasu PVC Exclusive is still up for pre-order until July 26th
  • Artorias busts (life size and grand scale) open for PO until July 19th
  • Other Exclusives still up for order: Mini Aku Aku Masks, Meta Ridley, Alphonse, Psycho Mantis, Shovel Knight Player 2, Mario on Yoshi, Jet Black
  • Discussions about whether to restart low-selling lines like One Punch Man or Samurai Champloo by beginning them in another scale such as 1:6 or revisiting the main character to widen the customer base for these lines
  • Quite a few before-and-after sneak peek revisions of Richter Belmont shown in the F4F OCC Facebook Group this week
  • Shiranui PVC is still in the very, very early days of development and is only having basic concept work done now
  • Amarerasu PVC is already in production with behind the scenes videos being shared in the F4F OCC Facebook group
  • Original Ammy PVC prototype was done with a red LED that made the lights like dim; all of the exclusive Amaterasu PVCs will come with updated, brighter yellow-white lights
  • Karmic Amaterasu variant will go up for sale sometime in 2020
  • Upsized Amaterasu resin statue based on the PVC should be up for order in 3-4 months
  • 3D Render of Snake SD box shown in the club this week as well
  • Plan to get the Sonic PVC out around the time of the film (Valentine’s Day 2020); has to go out on the boats in December in order to reach stores by February
  • Mega Man TF PVC silhouette shown in the club this week; someone foiled Alex by taking the photo and turning up the brightness to see more details
  • Mega Man PVC will debut at ACG or Gamescom
  • “PVC Centric, yo!” — Chocks
  • Will Zero be the longest thing in development? Mega Man Zero is being designed again for a third time; will be a super-long documentary when it finally goes up for pre-order; first started development in 2013
  • Revised sneak peeks of Snake bust shown in the OCC this week
  • Warp Star Kirby is in production and factory production photos have been posted
  • Concept for Metal Sonic 2.0 shown in the Facebook group this week; Alex is still looking at this closely and hasn’t made a decision yet on this
  • Alex isn’t gonna lie: “250+ likes on the Yakuza sneak peek this week was quite nice”; no gate, but Alex is very happy with the concept because it makes a dude in a suit look interesting as hell; Alex just isn’t sure what size this statue should be–doesn’t think Yakuza can support 1:4 prices; will see what the hype is like down the line
  • Alphonse Elric had been paused because changes were being made to add Pride teeth to the statue and to revise the emblem on the front of the statue
  • Aika sneak peek this week in the club! “What happened to Reala?”; Alex thinks there’s no question that Aika will sell better than Reala because Vyse/Skies of Arcadia sold much better than NiGHTS
  • “Did I say ‘Space Pirates’ instead of ‘Sky Pirates’? What a numbnuts!” — Alex Davis
  • Mumbo Jumbo sneak peek shown this week in the club! “I wouldn’t bother with Mumbo Jumbo unless we made it sweet. I have a fucking killer concept for this.” — Alex Davis
  • Can Mumbo Jumbo have a button to have him make his spell-casting sounds? “Interesting.”
  • Ninja Gaiden TT: 90 Yes, 169 No; “I remember everyone in the past saying ‘Let’s make some ninjas.'”
  • Star Ocean TT: 158 No, 39 Yes
  • Anime Black Clover TT Next Week!
  • No news on Mimic; still in its production slot
  • This week’s hashtag to enter in the livestream is #F4FGottaGoFast for a chance to win 500 Rewards Points chosen at random next week
  • Josh Mizrahi wants a TT for Bleach [So do I!]

F4F Sonic and Tails Statue Making of DocumentaryThe Q&A!:

  • Yakuza Kiryu statue will be resin and pre-order is ages away
  • Started making the molds for True Form Midna production now
  • There was nothing wrong with the Ornstein packaging–the ones that arrived damaged hadn’t been packed correctly
  • Horizon Zero Dawn TT: “Wake me when it’s Top 8 in the TTs! Top 8 and then we’ll talk.” [Currently it’s only in the top 25.]
  • Alex isn’t surprised by so many new companies making official resin statues; that’s why F4F is concentrating on the PVC pillar to diversify to survive (while continuing to make resin statues as well)
  • Alex doesn’t think collecting high-end collectibles has become more trendy lately; thinks licensors are giving out more licenses now because more people are asking for them
  • Alex loves his job–loves it!
  • Refund coupon codes will be sent 30 days after customers receive their Ornsteins; have to wait for the 30 days to make sure people don’t return their statues and keep the codes
  • IT Department is backed up right now, but would love to add the functionality to make payments early without contacting CS in the future
  • Sonic TF PVC will be next release in the Sonic lines
  • OCC Member Alessio Bucci will be at GamesCom Thursday and Friday this year!
  • Looking into Anime Expo 2020 if possible
  • Sonic vs. Eggman Diorama? “Nice.”
  • Won’t be at SDCC next week because it’s impossible to get a booth for new companies
  • Troy Blair Questions:
  • 1.)How much longer till we see the legend of zelda pvc preorders? When it’s ready.
  • 2.) It still shows that Midna will be shipped earliest Q3 is this still even an option or will that be updated?  Updated.
  • 3.) We have 5 months left in the year of 2019 how long till we see the rider link preorder?  When it’s ready.
  • 4.) Have you talked to Nintendo about some life size pieces for the legend of Zelda series? What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.
  • 5.) Can we expect to see any life size pieces In the legend of Zelda series in the next 2-3 year mark? That’s not props? Nope–nothing to say.
  • 6.) Have you seen the link life size statue in the New York nintendo shop? How much do you think would be if you could put that in our homes? Don’t have much experience in doing mass, life-size stuff.
  • 7.) Why is nintendo so slow with slowing you guys to release the legend of zelda statues ect. It’s one of your more popular lines and it drives buisness for Nintendo also? Absolutely not talking about anything like that. Not appropriate to be asking.
  • Meta-Ridley will be in production soon
  • No PAL cards for Snake SD
  • Yes–Pride teeth will be on both sides
  • Reprinting wings for Crystal Dragon now
  • Not sure when we might see Reala
  • Nothing to report on Tekken
  • Alex is so-so on the response to Metal Sonic 2.0 sneak peek
  • Can expect 5-7 more resin pre-orders in 2019
  • Banjo-Kazooie either did or didn’t switch factories
  • A ton of PVCs are coming out
  • Phoenix Wright is still open for POs–looking for that big influx at the end
  • Would probably release another modern Sonic as part of a diorama
  • Gurren Lagann fans need to vote if they want to see Kamina put up for pre-order
  • Super Shadow is coming along in 3-D
  • Reach for the skies and keep pushing for Modern Amy
  • Banjo-Kazooie is stuck behind Shiranui in production right now; no production videos until he’s further along
  • All Might PVC molds are being made right now
  • When a new license announcement is ready, it’s ready
  • Interesting people are requesting Mia Fey and not Edgeworth for Phoenix Wright
  • No Xenoblade Chronicles news right now
  • Chocks doesn’t have any snacks; it’s been a while
  • Alex goes to the bathroom and isn’t back in time for the countdown timer to run out to start the Sonic and Tails launch
  • Odds of Shiranui EX and Ammy LSB converting? “Probably.”
  • Working on more female statues, you’d best believe
  • Sometimes character order gets shifted because of roadblocks
  • Totally, all the time there are licenses/characters that turn out much harder than Alex expected
  • Probably no extra little easter eggs for PVC lines–price sensitive
  • Ornstein US shipment pushed back to September to give them time to get on the boat
  • Skull Knight PO absolutely this year
  • Alex thinks newcomers thinking the prices are high is to be expected since many of those customers are uneducated about the high-end statue world
  • Wouldn’t poll to ask if fans would pay more for niche characters that won’t sell well to get them made
  • All Might PO toward the back-end of the year
  • Need to have strong support for a resin (such as Amaterasu) in order to bet on it being able to subsidize development of a PVC
  • Alex is aware of Crash Team Racing color variants
  • Chao needs more than 80+ likes/votes to get an official TT
  • Can add Dragon Prince to list of possible TTs
  • Bloody Guts EX Wait List orders placed today should convert most likely
  • Work very closely with SEGA
  • Warp Star Kirby edition size hasn’t been announced yet

Making of Sonic and Tails F4F DioramaMaking of Sonic & Tails Diorama Documentary:

  • “How different was the approach and difficulty of this piece in comparison to previous Sonic pieces?” and “How did you narrow down the base with so many games featuring this flying pose?”
  • 4th piece in the Sonic Diorama series; have been talking about doing this pose as a statue for many years now
  • Diorama pieces are harder than single statue pieces because you have to think about the whole statue–figure and base–together as one thing and not just a figure with a base
  • Making a statue with a vertical orientation like this Sonic & Tails is much, much more difficult than a usual horizontally oriented statue; “has been in development Hell for a long time”
  • Original idea was to connect Sonic & Tails to Rexon from Sonic the Hedgehog 2, but couldn’t figure out how to suspend it in the air and have it not look weird
  • Chockles first learned about F4F from their Sonic the Hedgehog line because he’s a huge fan of Sonic and SEGA
  • Didn’t want to just do “another Green Hill Zone” base since it’s been done before again and again; hadn’t done anything from Sonic 3 before though; Alex loves being able to suspect Sonic & Tails from a piece of the environment and have it look like the characters are really flying naturally
  • Tails is helping Sonic go over obstacles to help him out, so F4F had to create a sense of danger; chose Angel Island because there are a lot of flames
  • Not happy or smiling–characters have serious/angry faces
  • Heat/fire paint deco added to the various elements of the diorama such as the tree and spikes to make the piece feel more realistic
  • For the first time ever, First 4 Figures has done a Badnik as part of a statue! “He is really, really cute. I think he’s so cute, Chocks!” — Alex Davis
  • Rhino bots do charge attacks in the game, so little treads have been placed onto the statue base to give him a sense of movement
  • Tree trunk wraps around the base before rising up to become the branch that supports Sonic & Tails
  • Spikes aren’t just placed on top of the grass–there’s little holes sculpted on the base with bunched up soil and a ring of dirt on the terrain for realism
  • Rhino Bot has some dirt and wear and tear on him–he’s not new, he’s been hanging out on Angel Island with a lot of bad conditions to live through
  • “How in the world are you going to make sure Sonic and Tails are supported enough to not have any leaning/breaking issues?”
  • How is this statue going to stay like this for years to come? Sonic’s arms and Tails’s arms are made completely out of metal. Right now the prototype’s arms are made of pewter, but the final production statues will have arms made of steel; Will go through drop tests/aging tests/transit tests to make sure that there won’t be any issues with this piece leaning
  • 20″ tall and 15″ deep; 7.13 kg weight based on the prototype
  • As always, there’s a website exclusive version: this time, the flames light up (“It’s kind of our thing!”)
  • Has a micro-USB port and LED indicator, plus a replaceable rechargeable internal battery
  • Lights have pulsing and always-on modes
  • What’s next for the Sonic diorama line? Alex thinks either a fight with Classic Robotnik or another anniversary piece or a modern Sonic piece
  • Companion Pieces? Alex thinks singular Badniks with small bases would be cool companion pieces
  • But wait–that’s not all! There’s a VARIANT! The Sonic & Tails Tropical Jungle version statue! This time, Sonic and Tails have happy expressions and aren’t scared at all!
  • Jungle version is calmer/happier/”things are okay”, so wanted to give the figures expressions that more matched the scenery
  • Will be very interesting to see which version people prefer and who will go for each version

Measuring Sonic and Tails F4F DioramaRhino Bot Badnik on Sonic and Tails Base

First 4 Figures Sonic Diorama Series All Together

Sonic & Tails Pre-Order Details:

[The F4F Q&A #125 Recap is now LIVE and being updated as the livestream happens. Stay tuned!]

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F4F Q&A #125 LIVE Recap: Sonic & Tails Diorama Revealed! — 1 Comment