Today isn’t a Reservation Friday, but today is anything but dull in the First4Figures world! Pre-orders for the Guts statue are continuing for now, Last Chance Weekend orders for the Classic Crash Bandicoot statue are open for the final time, next week’s pre-order will be revealed, discussion of this week’s Kingdom Hearts and PVC/Resin polls, the answer to whether or not the Amaterasu PVC is coming and more!

The Week in Review:

• The rumors are not true: True Form Midna is not being announced for pre-order this week!
• Conker is coming along really nicely–he’s still at the paint stage
• Kingdom Hearts: Had a conversation with Disney about KH in the past (about six months ago), and was told by Disney it had to be part of a package. Was told this week that Kingdom Hearts still has to be part of a comprehensive plan if F4F wants it. Alex has never seen a poll smash past 1000 votes in 24 hours!
• Alex’s concern is having to make other statues that aren’t quite game-related in order to make “the holy grail”: Disney statues. Does F4F have the resources to go after 5 licenses in order to get 1 main license that they want? F4F already has 45 licenses right now–should they try to take on multiple Disney licenses for the right to do Kingdom Hearts as well?
• Alex made some Hanna Barbera characters like the Jetsons and Flintstones when he worked with Jazwares
• Phoenix Wright has not been cancelled
• F4F is doing the best they can to make sure the molds for their PVCs stay at the factory and to combat counterfeits being made of the F4F PVCs
• Guts was the first pre-order that ever happened because of demand from the Facebook club
• Alex was never going to make True Form Midna until the demand for her was apparent because of the F4F OCC
• Aika: If fans want the Aika statue, they need to vote in the poll to determine the base for her! Not enough people are voting in this poll, despite the 550+ Aika votes in her TT poll. We may have to see how the revived Warp Star Kirby and Zero products do, as Alex is concerned about the viability of Aika right now.
• Crystal Dragon has now been submitted and will hopefully be approved.
• There’s a new Customer Service section in the website now where Customer Service “Tickets” are created and images/videos can be attached. For the back-end, there’s an updated UI that makes life much easier for CS. If you have a current case, do not open up a new case and confuse things.
• Too many customers are not getting back to F4F CS (Phil Tai) with documentation of destroying their defective parts after receiving replacements. If this continues, F4F will have to go back to the original method of asking for documentation of destroyed pieces before sending the replacements. Hopefully this won’t be necessary.
• Silver Edition Size will be completed–only 300 pieces of the announced edition size of 375 were actually produced in the first run. If you’d like a Silver EX Statue, get on the Wait List now! If you order now, your order will definitely be fulfilled!

On PVC and/or Resin Poll:

• There was a lot of confusion with the poll this week about producing “B-List” characters as PVCs. “B-Lister” doesn’t mean characters who did poorly in TT polls and who can’t sell well as resin statues–when Alex said “B-Lister”, he meant characters Gamestop, Best Buy, Hot Topic and Walmart would consider to be “B-Listers”. Zelda is an “A-Lister”, like Batman or Iron Man. Amaterasu is a “B-List” character for mass market retail stores, even if it sold great for F4F as a resin.
• The numbers to make the Amaterasu PVC are estimated to be so small that they project could be dead, as not enough units would be sold. PVC lives and dies by retailer support–unless F4F takes matters into their own hands by also making a statue in resin at a much bigger size.
• The value of getting PVCs out there on store shelves is much greater than resin for building the First 4 Figures brand name and recognition. In terms of people finding out about F4F, Alex wants PVCs to be the brand ambassador for F4F. There’s absolutely benefit to making the PVCs, even if the retailer support for them isn’t quite there. The resin versions would have to just be upscaled versions in the same pose in order to save money and not have to go through the approval process again.
• All of a sudden, it becomes easier to get into contact with companies like Best Buy and such because of having the PVC lines out there and having gamers that know F4F and want their figures.

Temptation Thursdays (TT) Polls:

• [I’ll cycle back and fill this in further later. I had to take the delivery of my F4F Dipp and Silver statues while this segment of the show was going on.]
• There will be a livestream play-through of Golden Sun this weekend to promote the Golden Sun TT poll.
• Attack on Titan TT coming next week.
• This week’s hashtag is #F4FAOTT for a chance to win 500 Reward Points next week.

On Nintendo:

• Rider Link will smoke Link on Epona out of the water in detailing, size and price
• No indication on the price range for True Form Midna yet. Still finalizing that. Will be nowhere near the price range the Princess Zelda launched at over 4 years ago, and Zelda was smaller and less complicated. True Form Midna will be significantly more expensive than Princess Zelda was.
• Way too far in the future to show Rider Link render
• We’ll see True Form Midna in a couple of months
• Will there be a Wind Waker Zelda? “She doesn’t have much screen time. Toon Link was beautiful to do as part of KORL. Where do you really see a Zelda for Wind Waker? Just one in the same scale? A diorama? You tell me what you want to see.”
• Absolutely will consider making a life-size Master Sword
• Will TT a Star Fox statue–the Arwing did alright, but not where F4F wanted sales to be for a Nintendo property
• Will there ever be another PVC/resin combo diorama like Link vs. Scervo? “No.” F4F put their own spin on the Together+ Link and Scervo statues (which were removable from their bases) by creating the Sandship base for them to be placed on, but that couldn’t happen with future F4F PVCs since those are fixed to their bases.
• Going to the next stage with Meta-Ridley statue
• Warp Star Kirby’s turn to be painted is coming; let’s see how Warp Star Kirby does before talking about Ninja Kirby
• Pikmin doesn’t have enough support yet in polls
• Majora’s Mask is the statue that sold the most pieces all-time right now
• F4F will push True Form Midna back a day every time someone asks about her [joking]
• Alex will have more information on future Zelda lines after Las Vegas Licensing Expo
• Any chance for Kass from BOTW? “He would be quite low-tier.”
• Xenoblade Chronicles and Captain Falcon TTs are on the list for TT polls before the Las Vegas Licensing Expo
• Alex doesn’t recall if the full edition size of Link on Epona was produced. Would never complete the edition size at this point 8 years later (especially at the same price).
• Faux Bronze Rider Link? “No chance Alex is sharing details on Rider Link right now.”
• No Epona variant of Rider Link–not possible like Dark Souls Artorias (who was also DLC) because of different licensors. Could F4F paint the horse in a way that looks like Epona? “Maybe”. Would it actually be Epona with the proper saddle and bridle? “Very unlikely.” Will discuss with Nintendo in Las Vegas.
• Dark Rider Link variant? Looks like it might be an issue if the sculpt would have to be different from the regular Rider Link statue.

On Anime:

• Alphonse prototype being sent to America, which will then be sent to Japan–will go up for order if he’s approved
• Quite a few revisions to Alphonse have been made since beginning the project
• “Yes” Kamina will come with his katana
• Can’t say what the price of the Cowboy Bebop statues will be right now–prices won’t be as artificially low as the price on Saitama was
• Alex is struggling a little bit with the 4th characters in the Berserk line–hasn’t found the money shot yet
• Alphonse is leaving for Japan tomorrow
• Wait and see how many heads Berserker Armor Guts will come with
• Fans should check out the Claymore anime–Chocks is a fan
• Cowboy Bebop Spike pre-order will probably be in a couple of months–hands have been made bigger for Spike and smaller for Jet; Jet can follow as quickly or slowly as fans want him to
• FLCL (Fooly Cooly): We can slap this down on the TT list.
• Guts numbering will be shared between Bloody and Non-Bloody variants
• Alphonse submitted to licensor
• Too far away for us to hear about the 4th Berserk statue
• Berserk Guts pre-orders will continue to be open; around 570 Guts EX Bloody and Non-Bloody statues combined have been sold thus far; pre-order will remain open until production begins or until 1000 total pre-orders have been placed (whichever comes first); very likely Guts will not get near 1000 sales; will update every few weeks

Next Week’s Pre-Order–Okami Shiranui!

• Please be happy for those who are excited for this piece and not a Debbie Downer–your time will come too
• First pre-order of a piece not shown at New York Comic Con 2017 in over half a year!

Various Topics from The Q&A:

• Clear Crystal Dragon is still being done
• Mimic may or may not be cheaper than Ornstein–not going there right now
• Dark Souls III statue will come before the first Dark Souls II statue
• Alucard Edition Size: Alex Forgot. Chock will remind him next week.
• F4F has a Las Vegas meeting scheduled with Activision–will talk about Spyro there
• The votes for Aika were there for the TT poll (eventually), but are they still there? We need to see more rallying for Aika. [Go vote in the Aika pose poll!!!!] Alex was excited to see the Aika TT hit 550, but there needs to be more obvious support for Aika for the project to go forward.
• Alex has some cool ideas for the Aika Ultimate Edition, but is it worth even showing them if the support isn’t there to produce the statue? It will be a lovely piece–if the fans are there.
• Banjo-Kazooie and Skull Knight are not even remotely close to each other on the pre-order schedule–they’re at least 7-9 months apart
• Alex is stunned/staggered/amazed by the votes for the Kingdom Hearts poll so far. Alex is lowered about having to get “lower-tier” licenses to get “the big one”, though.
• Possibly Villagers from Okami statues or Shiranui support? “You tell me.” [Rally the fans.]
• Grayfox was submitted to Konami last week–received comments and replied; next in Metal Gear Solid line after Psycho Mantis
• Crystal Cloak Alucard: Alex has asked the team to do one [a mock-up prototype, I assume]. “When we get there, we get there.” Alex is excited about the future of the Castlevania line.
• The Amaterasu PVC will happen because F4F will support it with a resin.
• Nothing to report with Persona 5
• Haven’t heard anything back about Darksiders license–if F4F tries to go after Kingdom Hearts, Darksiders would likely become less of a priority
• If you had to be one video game character, who would you choose? Alex: Majora’s Mask. Chockles: Unsure.
• Alex hasn’t decided what will be revealed at 50K. Chocks thinks maybe they have decided. Alex does weird taps on the table which may be some sort of code teasing this.
• Solaire is at the same factory doing Spyro and Majora’s Mask, which is what is delaying him
• Mimic’s Pre-Order won’t have any relation to when Solaire ships
• Spyro will be shipping later than Majora’s Mask because Spyro ships in his own container and is only at the middle of production–MM is at the end
• Shiranui is coming along nicely
• Alex is a big fan of anything that people commercially want Disney-wise
• Dead Space TT has 750+ ‘Yes’ votes, but is that enough now? F4F only has so much bandwidth. More support right now than Darksiders, so would have an advantage over Darksiders in Alex’s interest level.
• Alex has a Shiba-Inu and is planning to get a cat in the next month or so; Alex has never had a cat and wants to experience it
• Can we expect Robotech in the near future? Not in the near future–only has 43 ‘Yes’ votes. TTs never die.
• Any hope for Final Fantasy VII? Alex: *sad face*
• F4F has zero relationship with Telltale Games. First 4 Figures will consider any licenses that people want them to get, though.
• Alex has visited Australia and it’s a great place with cool landmarks
• F4F chooses the factories with the right quality and the right speed and the right price to make their statues
• Red Bull has their own official merchandise, a F4F Core Red Bull line would be quite cool though
• First 4 Figures has made quite a few changes to Phoenix Wright over the years
• F4F would love to sell to Gamestop, but you don’t just “consider” selling to Gamestop–dependent on credit ratings, payment terms, contacts and buying agents, etc. It’s complicated and has huge amounts of risk, even though it does give more exposure.
• Let’s see how Crash with Jetpack goes before considering Crash with Bazooka/Motorcycle
• Opportunity cost of making one statue and not making another has to be considered
• Replacement stock comes separate from regular production run–doesn’t come from the same stock as actual orders
• The remaining 75 Silver statues will be made from scratch at the factory, so it will take a while
• Yakuza statue will not launch before the new game
• The cancelled F4F statue of The Rock is posed with his arm up in the air
• Still sorting out F4F card holders–going to be really tough to figure it out and get it done
• Alex will tell us why the statue planned for today’s PO was delayed after the fact
• The biggest secret Chock is keeping? “You’re talking about work, right?”
• We may start to see some sudden surprise statue pre-orders now that we’re six months plus past NYCC–we’ll always know upcoming characters, but not necessarily what they look like. “Never ever ever” will there be complete surprise statues coming up for order that have never been mentioned before.
• Alex likes that the club is exciting again now and filled with speculation and discussion now that we’re almost through the pieces previewed at NYCC 2017. Collectors know True Form Midna is coming, but not exactly what she’ll look like.
• Not necessarily holding back on Shiranui previews until after Okami HD launches
• No updates on Onion Bro plush right now
• What Disney Princess would Chock marry? “Whoever says ‘Yes’ first. First come first serve. The rest will all be his girlfriends.”
• Snake will most likely ship before Bowser
• Crystal Dragon was submitted this week–fingers crossed
• Warp Star Kirby is in line to be painted
• Disney can now be rallied for on Fundays
• Zero not going up for order now because of common business sense [while there are other Zero statues going up for order in the marketplace]. Why not give it the best chance it has?
• Replica weapons could have problems with customs in some countries.
• Can’t get Golden Eye license just because of Rare relationship–Rare had to license that to make that game themselves
• Alex wants to get into plush as the third pillar of F4F (after Resin and PVC statues)
• Lazy as Hell–just haven’t looked into card holders enough
• F4F has never been granted a license that they knew would do well and then not done them, but have been granted licenses that might not do well and paid for them and not made anything for them
• Nothing fans can do to help Darksiders along–have to wait for licensor to reply to Alex’s E-Mail
• F4F will make special GamesCom Edition PVC statues with special sleeves and bring shirts/hoodies to sell at the show

…And that’s it for this week! A mere 2700+ words of #F4FGoodness! Did you learn anything you liked this week, F4Fans?