20 years ago today, the first Banjo-Kazooie video game arrived on the N64, making the bird-and-bear duo one of the most beloved platform video game characters of a generation. With this date coincidentally falling on a First4Figures Q&A Friday, there’s just no way that F4F could let such a momentous occasion slip away without celebration, right…? And so, we got our very first glimpse at the F4F Banjo-Kazooie statue today! And that’s just the start of this week’s Q&A with Alex and Chock…
Announcements and The Week in Review:
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- Collectors will be dazzled with the colors of Banjo-Kazooie! It’s really, really colorful!
- Banjo-Kazooie First 4 Figures statue teaser trailer will be shown twice during the Q&A: once around 10:30AM EST and again at the end of the stream
- Typically F4F doesn’t tell collectors what statue is coming up next, but “this is probably the world’s worst-kept secret”
- Dark Souls Solaire PVC Exclusive Pre-Orders close on Tuesday, July 3rd! Don’t forget to order in the next four days if you want this!
- Crystal Dragon Pre-Orders will remain open until the 24th of July–plenty of time still to place your orders! Will continue to update with answers to collectors’ questions about this piece.
- True Form Midna edition size numbers will be delayed until next week
- The F4F OCC Facebook Group reached 50,000 members over the weekend! A tremendous, amazing achievement! To hit 50K and still have a welcoming, non-disrespectful tone in the club makes Alex so proud and so grateful! Amazing!
- Chock is chowing down on Fried Spicy Pork Corn Snacks this week, for those wondering
- F4F heard fans and listened by adding the Crystal Dragon Mixed Combo Pack
- Mini Chocks went on an adventure again–in pieces–and got to hang out with the Exclusive Golden Dragon that comes with Crystal Dragon EX
- Next week will be the full review and pre-order for First 4 Figures Banjo Kazooie
- “Alex going to the toilet! Now how’s that for a teaser, guys? I hope he’s not going for a #2!” — Chock
- F4F has to revert back to the old policy for replacements where customers must destroy their damaged or defective statue before getting a replacement because of some collectors selling their replacement parts on ebay or not documenting destroying their statues after being replaced
- Alex is 100% tea–he doesn’t drink coffee at all. [Or beer!]
- Got approval this week on the first non-Dark Souls SD PVC figure! Alex likes that F4F SD is becoming a whole range now!
- Will bring some stock of Artorias SD, Link PVC and Crash PVC to sell at Gamescom
- Some pre-orders will be opened at Gamescom, but those who order there will still have to Validate on the website on Validation Tuesday for low numbers and Day One bonuses
- The first non-Dark Souls SD figures will debut at GamesCom 2018!
- Alex doesn’t know what factory Banjo-Kazooie will be made at yet–BK has been developed in-house and can be taken to different factories to get quotations and check factory capacity; should hopefully cut down on wait time for statues
- “Tee-Hee of Something Yellow That Looks Like Lady Parts. O.M.G.” — Alex Davis
- Is anyone up for Oddworld: Abe’s Odyssey statues? F4F has been approached about this, and wants to know if collectors are keen for it. There was a TT for this in the past that didn’t do swell, so Alex will ask again and compare to the original TT. Need to 600, 700, 800 ‘Yes’ votes minimum now, though.
- Miguel is planning to make a Blog Series about the F4F Admins. Is this something that the community would be interested in reading? [Chocks wants to know our dirty secrets!]
- [Side Note: I got interviewed myself on Bang H Le’s B/S Collectors Page on Facebook last weekend. A wonderful group and community! Check it out!]
- Jessica Castick became an admin without ever having an F4F. [Who knew!!]
Temptation Thursdays (TT Polls) and King of the Ring:
- This section will be filled in as it happens during today’s F4F Q&A #76. Stand by!
- Sailor Moon TT: 320 ‘Yes’ Votes, 160 ‘No Votes’; almost a perfect 2/3 ‘Yes’ votes; Keep on rallying if you want this
- Wipeout TT: 145 Votes; 43 ‘Yes’ Votes, 102 ‘No’ Votes — 9th worst overall in ‘Yes’ votes
- Vampire Hunter D TT Next Week!
- Ryu Hazuki loses to Lucky Cat in the King of Ring tournament
- Super Sonic defeated Alcatraz in King of the Ring tournament Match #4
- Metal Sonic vs. Pac-Man match is currently ongoing with Metal Sonic currently smashing Pac-Man
- 8 and a Half Tails vs. Tails Next Week in the King of the Ring!
The Q&A!:
- This section will be filled in as it happens during today’s F4F Q&A #76. Stand by!
- Alphonse Pre-Order Targeted for September 2018
- Won’t redo Spyro character polls, as there’s individual ones for Ripto and Hunter already, as well as an overall character poll
- Akihabara, Maid Cafes, Life-Size Gundam are worth checking out when visiting Japan
- Alex will do an official character poll for Darksiders in real-time at GamesCom
- Haven’t had a chance to test changes to Shiranui yet such as the glow-in-the-dark tendrils
- Shiranui is at the Snake factory behind Snake and Guts in production
- Not going to NYCC this year–have a significantly larger booth for GamesCom than they had at NYCC last year, though
- F4F will not do set edition sizes; could not sustain a business selling statues with edition sizes of 350
- Mini-Chocks IP licensing fee would be really expensive–would drive up the price a lot. 😉
- First 4 Figures is not about small edition sizes; the disappointment surrounding Lucky Cat Mario will never happen again and is the primary reason F4F statues are made to order now
- Reservations for Banjo-Kazooie open next week
- Not every factory is the same by a longshot
- Not every F4F piece could be made at every factory by a longshot
- Cannot have every F4F piece made at the same factory by a longshot–one factory absolutely couldn’t handle that number of projects
- Some movement on Yakuza and Phoenix Wright
- Spyro PVC will be based on Reignited look for Spyro
- Alex does like combo packs! Niche characters with combo pack potential get more attention from Alex!
- Chocks is Alex’s brother from another mother!
- The main reason we haven’t seen Sif SD yet is that he’s not part of the template like Artorias, Solaire, Ornstein; he’d still need some work if he’s being done
- No Legend of Zelda statues planned for 2018 that have not been announced
- Will have True Form Midna LE numbers next week
- “How many statues can we expect for the rest of this year for the legend of zelda resin and pvc?” — Alex can’t tell the answer to this.
- “How many legend of zelda statue do you have planned for 2019 resin and pvc?” — Alex can’t tell the answer to this.
- “Do you have anything planned for us for the legend of zelda life size prop line after the shiekan slate ?” — Alex can’t tell the answer to this.
- “can we expect any surprises in the legend of zelda line for this year?” — Alex can’t tell the answer to this.
- F4F would make Master Sword from Metal and Hylian Shield from Resin if they ever made life-size Zelda replicas of them
- Nothing definitive to say about the material for True Form Midna DE Display Case
- Bowser won’t start production until Varia Suit Samus is further along
- It’s possible Crash and/or Alucard could be released before the end of 2018
- Artorias SD shipping to the US soon
- Alex is going to the factory next week to see the PVCs and Solaire
- Chocks will miss his snacks being eaten by John if he leaves F4F after the club reaches 100K members
- Will have more information on shipping for Spyro and Solaire resins next week after Alex visits the factory
- Phoenix Wright is likely to be up for pre-order this year; Kiryu and Bayonetta certainly next year; maybe Bayonetta guns this year
- Alex wasn’t serious about the 80 Pack of Mini Crytstal Dragons, but getting more serious about it as time goes on
- Shovel Knight is at the back of the line at the factory behind Spyro, Solaire and Aku Aku Mask; this factory was backed up by Majora’s Mask before and will hopefully catch up quickly now
- Alex owns at least one of every F4F statue ever and all the Vaulted items
- One-and-done licenses are something Alex wants to avoid, but can deal with; thinks Conker and Banjo might be similar to one-and-dones
- What is the meaning of life? Alex: “To be the best you can?”
- “What does it mean to exist…? …Is probably a bit deep for the Friday Q&A. What are we doing here…? We’re hanging out in the club.” — Alex
- My Hero Academia Character Poll is impressive
- Why hasn’t Brendan Rastello hit up Alex to remind him about a new Aika poll? =P
- Kill La Kill poll is improving quite a lot, but still needs time and more votes
- No plans for Lenticular Day One cards right now because Alex likes to keep things consistent, but does pique Alex’s interest
- Amy Rose definitely won’t be ready by the end of August, but is looking nice
- Material used for Golden Dragon is directly related to how many pre-orders there are for the Crystal Dragon; the mold is expensive and it might not be possible to make the Golden Dragon out of of metal if there aren’t many pre-orders
- Can’t get an official #SAVEF4FChamploo thread until all of the Mugen statues are shipped out
- Nightmare edition size being completed at the factory will take quite a long time
- Bayonetta Guns PO probably at the end of the year
- No plans for Fire or Ice Mario variants on Yoshi, since those would likely have to be holding something
- Chocks and Alex’s Making of Documentary synchronous intro with their fingers wiggling in the air evolved from having to keep themselves entertained after realizing they couldn’t be serious and professional in those videos
- Amaterasu LSB production is taking some time; the factory doing that is kind of slow
- Fighter Kirby replacements are being made at the same factory as Solaire and Spyro; Alex will check in there next week
- Could hit up the artist for Sonic Mania, Tyson Hesse, for statue poses
- Classic Amy Rose unlikely–difficult for F4F to produce unpopular variants of characters because it has repercussions for the company to do so
- No updates on Persona 5
- Would never do two anime statues so close to each other–Alphonse won’t be right after Spike
- Maybe a teaser for Alphonse can be done soon-ish
- Alex can let us know with 100% certainty that unfortunately F4F was not successful with acquiring a Nier Automata license; a bit of a shame–First 4 Figures tried, but you can’t win ’em all
- Trying to get peoples’ orders to appear on the order page before working on an app
- Just got initial approval on the Fullmetal Alchemist Edward Elric 3-D
- Alex has absolutely had conversations with the MHA licensor and has done research and has some seriously amazing ideas in his head right now
- One-and-done licenses are hard because of the minimum guarantee to the licensor, especially if the one statue that gets done doesn’t have high sales
- Difficult to send statues first to Canada as guinea pigs since it takes 5-6 weeks for the shipment to reach Canada and arrive in collectors’ hands
- No plans for gold foil for Day One bases right now
- If it was up to Alex, next mask replica would be Fierce Deity Link
- Originally planned for Banjo-Kazooie reveal to be earlier in the year
- Solaire resin will absolutely be shipped this year
- Ornstein is behind Bowser is the production queue, so it’ll be a while
- Let’s wait for more Mugens to arrive in the wild before talking about Jin
- Price of Spike will be revealed next month when he goes up for sale
- 10th Anniversary of Darksiders will be in 2020. Who could make a statue for that?
- Cannot ship statues back between warehouses in order to cut out customs charges
- Mettaton is this week’s “Who Dat Who Dat”–from Undertale, perhaps the greatest game of our time! Would collectors be up for Undertale?
…And that’s all for this week! See you back next week for the Banjo-Kazooie full reveal and pre-order, #F4Fans!