It’s the first First 4 Figures Q&A of 2018! And for the first time in what feels like forever–there’s nothing major going on! It’s not a milestone show, a pre-order Friday, or even a Last Chance Weekend. But what this show does have… is a ton of answers to collectors’ questions! Did Varia Suit Samus take the sales crown from Majora’s Mask? Will there be fabric on True Form Midna or Gravelord Nito? Baby Chockalina! What pre-orders are on track for Q1 2018 pre-orders? And which statue is kicking Alex’s ass…? All this and more in the F4F Q&A #52 Recap!

On Nintendo:

• Varia Suit Samus didn’t hit anywhere near the number of orders that Majora’s Mask did, although Alex doesn’t know the exact final numbers yet
• Can’t comment on what’s next in life-size Zelda mask line after Majora’s Mask, if anything
• Rider Link is still in 3-D and waiting for feedback; Sheikah Slate is in physical state and deep in development–hopefully both will be up for pre-order this year
• True Form Midna statue will not have fabric
• F4F is actively working on 1 Legend of Zelda statue that collectors don’t know about right now
• F4F has a general license for everything Zelda and doesn’t need a license for each game to make statues
• Mario on Yoshi statue hopefully this year; “maybe middle of Q3 2018”; “looking very, very tight”
• Warp Star Kirby is in the development stage and most likely going up for pre-order in Q2 2018
• The difficulty on True Form Midna development is the hair–with the engineering of the hair and fitting it inside the cape and the headpiece is “super-duper difficult”; she is “tough, tough”
• Donkey Kong pre-order likely not in 2018
• True Form Midna statue pre-order will be “when she’s finished kicking [Alex’s] ass”
• Can work on Meta-Ridley’s support beam more transparent
• Varia Suit Samus LCW sales: Alex is very happy with the sales
• Light Suit Samus is the most complicated F4F statue released to date
• Alex hopes we see at least 3 Zelda statues go up for order in 2018
• Would collectors want a Hyrule Castle environmental statue with a pig-headed Calamity Ganon flying around it? RTF! (Rally the fans!)
• Meta Ridley escaped the vault via constant meetings with Nintendo and much badgering
• Mario on Yoshi will be in-scale with Bowser

On Anime:

• My Hero Academia: “Yes. Absolutely–your voices are being heard.”; Alex is leaning more toward going into something, even knowing that other companies will also go into it; but nothing to say right now–keep voting to impress licensors
• If all goes well, Cowboy Bebop Jet Black statue will debut at C3 next month and go up for order by the end of Q1 2018
• Guts is the 2018 statue that Alex is most looking forward to–an example where the club absolutely influenced First 4 Figures to get the license; “if Guts doesn’t do well, we’ll never listen to you again, hahahaha”
• Guts pre-order early in Q1, Alphonse probably in Q2
• Griffith Reborn could be in the works depending on Guts’ sales
• Cowboy Bebop Spike and Jet are 1/4 scale and were designed to be simplistic to have friendly prices so collectors buy the whole crew and not just Spike; meant to entice a lot of old-school anime fans
• No development work started on Ed & Ein yet–Faye is after Spike and Jet
• Alex thinks F4F could probably do some pretty cool stuff with LED lighting with the wide variety of power-users in My Hero Academia
• Hajime no Ippo? RTF. (Rally the fans.)
• Painting has started on Alphonse; let’s get a bit further down before discussing beyond Edward Elric
• Work on One Punch Man Genos statue should be wrapping up soon

On Dark Souls:

• Ornstein is still the first pre-order of 2018; not sure when the pre-order will be yet in January–information will be posted in the club as soon as it’s available
• Alex and Chock made the ~50 minute Ornstein Documentary last night, which includes a variety of collector questions and answers
• Alex is really looking forward to the Ornstein pre-order; thinks the Dark Souls fans are really going to like it
• Gravelord Nito statue pre-order will be in the second half of 2018; “a big boy”/”dude”
• F4F wants to get back into the rhythm of getting a new resin Dark Souls statue out every 4-5 months; in addition to the SD Dark Souls PVCs and plushies
• “A lot” of Dark Souls statues are in development after Gravelord Nito; can’t say exactly how many
• What female Dark Souls character is in development right now? “Nothing to say just yet.”
• Solaire final payment and shipping should be sometime in Q2 2018
• Alex has been sitting on a Dark Souls III statue for a long time now; will see if he can get some movement on that
• Do collectors want F4F to continue focusing on the first Dark Souls, or occasionally throw in a Dark Souls II or III item?
• Gravelord will absolutely be mixed media–you can’t replicate this look without using mixed media
• Will all the Dark Souls SD figures just be big-heads? The way Chock sees it, “they’ve got normal-sized heads and tiny bodies.”
• SD Artorias will be up for order, followed by Solaire, to give Dark Souls collectors’ wallets a chance to recover

On Temptation Thursdays (TT) Polls:

• Valkyria Chronicles: “TTs never die.”
• Puyo Puyo: Believe it or not, the 27 ‘Yes’ votes for Puyo Puyo isn’t the lowest scoring TT ever. Wing Commander actually did worse than Puyo Puyo.
• Digimon TT Next Week! Generic characters to be voted on, as with Pokemon.
• Lost Odyssey TT will be in two weeks, followed by Kenshin TT (anime) in three weeks.
• This week’s hashtag is #F4FMON for a chance to win 500 Reward Points

On Various Topics:

• F4F is up for more sounds for statues after Aku Aku Mask on a statue-by-statue basis
• From concept to in-hand, it takes at least a year and a half to create a statue if everything goes smoothly
• F4F knows to a certain extent what the shipping box sizes are going to be during pre-order, but is thinking about removing shipping cost estimate during pre-order in case final shipping costs change when the time comes to ship the actual statue
• It’s very rare for First4Figures to get a return because of a customer not liking a statue–usually returns are only because of shipping damage or a defect
• King of Red Lions won the Statue Forum Gaming Statue of the Year Award–Congrats!
• Silver and Sonic and one batch of Majora’s Mask should definitely ship before Chinese New Year, but it will be close–Spyro may not make it, but up in the air
• Amaterasu Life-Size Bust is late because the factory producing it was backed up producing Silver, 25th Anniversary Sonic and Nightmare
• Hopes to push at least 16 pre-orders in 2018
• Alex thinks Red Bull is “fine”; has had it like twice–and Chock gave both of the cans
• Chock has yet to try 5-Hour Energy–he’s not going to cheat on Red Bull
• PVC statue prototypes are always made in resin first in order to be used as the tooling sample when making the steel molds for the PVCs
• Typically it takes about a month for Wait Lists to be contacted after statues hit a warehouse
• Still working on PVC plans, but don’t be surprised if First4Figures goes more and more into that
• Mega Man Zero pre-order likely around February 2018
• Banjo-Kazooie Pre-Order in Q2 2018; Conker pre-order in Q3/Q4 2018 “or something like that”
• Could 1/6 scale resins ever happen again? “But of course–we’re going some 1/6 scale statues at the moment.”
• How long are collectors willing to wait before getting really pissed off if they make their payments on schedule for delayed statues on time? Alex delays payments so customers feel more satisfied and less entitled.
• Development has not started yet on a 4th Metal Gear Solid statue (for after Solid Snake, Psycho Mantis and Gray Fox)
• No major surprises ahead in 2018 because of TTs–although First 4 Figures has an interesting meeting on Monday of some sort
• No development on Darksiders statues yet
• SEGA Meeting is next week
• Wario? “RTF.” (Rally the fans.)
• Chockles will give you 1000 F4F Reward Points if you have a baby girl and name it Chockalina; Alex says 5000 points if you have the birth certificate for validation
• Resin Crash Bandicoot statue is looking nice–Pre-order probably in March 2018
• Zero and Meta Ridley were in the Vault and came out, so products can come out of the Vault–Warp Star Kirby was about to be locked in as well
• Conker is in the same scale as Banjo-Kazooie
• Alex would beat Chockes in Soul Calibur II, even if he was using his worst character, blindfolded, and with his controller unplugged (ouch)
• First4Figures has looked into Persona 5 and is actively discussing it
• F4F could discuss Resident Evil statues with Capcom if there was enough rallying, but Alex doesn’t hear enough noise to catch his interest yet
• No updates on Legend of Spyro Spyro and Cynder–paused for now while Alex makes Spyro “look less high”
• Ornstein, Alucard, Zero, True Form Midna, Solid Snake, Crash, Guts and the Dark Souls PVCs are the prospective pre-orders for Q1 2018–there will be a Last Chance Weekend for the Nanase Edition Solid Snake (AKA Neon Green Snake)
• Hopefully F4F will attend GamesCom 2018 this year “and only give Earthworm Jim to people who come to the show–for free (April Fools)”
• Simon Belmont did “quite-shockingly badly” despite being one of F4F’s best pieces; hoping that Alucard will change that trend; can look into doing an SD Version of Castlevania PVC statues if Alucard does really well
• Absolutely talking about followups to Sonic Boom8 Series; going deep for that line
• Packaging for Spyro Gem box has not been approved yet
• Nothing to report on the thermal goggles for Snake just yet

…And that’s all for this week! If you like these recaps, please be sure to follow the Gamer Toy News Facebook Page!