My preference is to post these First 4 Figures Q&A with Chocks and Alex recaps either live as they happen or soon after, but a funny thing happened last week: I was at New York Comic Con 2018, giving out F4F Wristbands, Pins and free Rewards Points to ever OCC member who could hunt me down! In my old age it’s taken my a few days to catch up on what I missed last week, but it’s finally here: the F4F Q&A #90 Recap! How did the first-ever Friday Validation stream go? Read on…

Announcements & The Week in Review:

• Working very hard behind the scenes to make sure it’s going to be a super-smooth validation
• Josie is there in the background to give moral support in case it all goes to chips during validation
• The purple on the Spyro PVC’s box didn’t pop enough, so the packaging has been revised to make the purple much brighter and more vivid so that it really stands out on the shelf
• The box will have gloss UV on the scales to look incredible, and the Spyro heads on the proof sheet will be printed onto the windows of the box
• Guts, Spike, Psycho Mantis and Warp Star Kirby Exclusives are still up for order on the F4F website for now
• Alex is drinking a McDonalds Lemon Coke Zero–nothing special, but he needed a little bit of a boost-me-up after being in China at the factory all day
• Had a round of interviews with quite a few people last week, and a new batch of people will be joining the F4F team: Peggy will be working alongside Chockles and will be heavily active in the club; Peggy starts bright-eyed and ready for the challenge on 10/8/2018, allowing Chockles to split his attention
• A new team member running the wholesale side of First 4 Figures replacing Jeff will also be joining the team: Dan
• The week of 10/15, two more new team members will be joining to help with graphics and project development
• Alphonse Elric Statue teaser trailer shown–reservation Friday will be next Friday, October 12th
• The trailer was actually shown prior to the Q&A, as First 4 Figures had to take advantage of the fact that Fullmetal Alchemist Day was 10/3
• The first resin Spyros have started to arrive for collectors in Asia/Australia; most recipients have been very happy thus far, with very few reported instances of damage–if you do get a damaged one, be sure to contact customer service via the CS form on the website
• Chock saw two live unboxing of the Spyro statue and 3-4 videos of unboxings
• The only problem is that the Day One stickers weren’t sent with the resin Spyros that went to Australia/Asia–the stickers will be sent separately to all those customers
• 18650 battery has to be purchased separately by those in AUS–F4F is not allowed to ship batteries into the country with the statue
• The “Day One Edition” was originally called “Zero Hour”, but it didn’t make sense to a lot of people because “Zero Hour” actually took place over the course of 12 hours
• However, “Day One” is also confusing some customers, because Day One is the 24 hours following Validation and not the 24 hours following reservations for a statue opening
• Alex is thinking of changing the name to “Signature Edition”, which isn’t as confusing as “Day One” or “Zero Hour”
• The special PVCs that will be sold at conventions are probably going to be called the Convention Edition–these will be the exclusive PVCs, but without the extra special packaging; these are intended to help attract new customers to First 4 Figures during conventions
• Spyro PVC EXclusive edition size will be a minimum of 3000–if he doesn’t reach 3000 orders within his one-month pre-order window, orders will be open until he does reach 3000
• Alex was in China for two days and checked out Alucard at the factory–which looks great, but has come changes that need to be done; videos of Alucard production posted in the club; Alex could spot things likely to go wrong during production and correct those issues before full production
• Alex also did the Solaire drop test at the factory; exclusive and regular Solaire resin are ready to be packed up and sent out now (starting with the Asia and Australia warehouses); the Jolly Combo and Praise the Sun versions aren’t ready to go yet–Alex wants the PTS versions to all be set up on the tables at the factory with the lights running for one day to ensure that the lights are working well
• Alex had a really nice, warm and fuzzy meeting with the workers in China last week
• Half the US orders for Sonic 25th Anniversary EX are in the warehouse now, while the second batch is currently scheduled to arrive in December 2018
• Alex expects to go to the factory in a few weeks for the final inspection before Solid Snake ships out; hoping Snake ships out by the end of the year
• Varia Suit Samus Update: Alex needs to go back to the factory in a few weeks–the factory is going a bit slow and needs a smackdown
• Nito is now at the physical stage, needs to have duplication and engineering done before he’s ready for painting; both Nito and Skull Knight took a long time but are finally ready to get rocking rolling in physical development
• Conker will be up for pre-order toward the end of the year

Spyro PVC TF001 Validation!:

• Day One Edition starts when Validation starts and runs for 24 hours, and always comes with a holographic sticker, an extra art card signed by Alex Davis and bonus rewards points
• The Spyro PVC Day One card poll choices are shown during the livestream, although one of the cards shows the resin Spyro by mistake, irritating Warm and Fuzzy Alex
• Next in the Spyro PVC line could be one of the side characters, or more likely (subject to approval) to be a classic (OG) Spyro in the same size–those who validate their Reignited Spyro PVC will be able to authenticate and keep their same number for the next figure
• Chocks recommends validating every single one of your orders for the same item (if you ordered multiples), and then on the back-end the F4F team will manually choose the lowest-numbered one and make sure the rest follow in sequential order
• Trying to get the PVC Spyro released before Q1 2019, but want to manage expectations and not guarantee that purple boi will arrive before the end of 2018

How fast did you have to Validate to get a certain low number? Approximations below (and screen-grabbed above!):

• Sub 1000– 5 minutes and 18 seconds
• Sub 900 — 2 minutes 31 seconds
• Sub 800 — 2 minutes 2 seconds
• Sub 700 — 1 minute 25 seconds
• Sub 600 — 1 minute 8 seconds
• Sub 500 — 1 minute 5 seconds
• Sub 400 — 1 minutes 2 seconds
• Sub 300 — 57 seconds
• Sub 200 — 51.8 seconds
• Sub 150 — 50 seconds
• Sub 100 — 47.5 seconds
• Sub 50 — 45 seconds
• In the space of 3 seconds, 100 people validated!
• These numbers can move up or down slightly because of cancellations or people who ordered multiple Spyro PVCs
• Option B looks to be the clear winner for the Spyro Exclusive Edition Day One signature card design

Temptation Thursdays TT Polls:

• Afro Samurai TT #120: 121 ‘No’ Votes, 67 ‘Yes’ Votes
• Binding of Isaaac TT #121: 159 ‘No’ Votes, 72 ‘Yes’ Votes
• Guild Wars TT for Charr Next Week!
• Owlboy TT in 2 Weeks!
• Blood Plus TT in 3 Weeks!
• This week’s hashtag to win 500 Rewards Points on Q&A #90 is #F4FBIGAL

The Q&A!:

• Al pre-orders next week–Alex and Chock are always nervous before an anime launch
• Yakuza updates are contingent on Kickstarter discussions with Sega
• Phoenix Wright is being made darker and hopefully finishing soon
• Alex just has to pull the trigger on the mini-figures, as they’re metal and expensive to produce
• There’s absolutely zero chance that Chockles can take Alex in Soul Calibur II, but anything else–besides Tekken–Chock would win at; Chock is King of 2-D fighting games in the F4F Office (although there have been new entrants in the office since last tested and Chock may not reign supreme anymore!)
• There will never be a bonus for those who order on the first day of Reservations specifically, because that’s far more complicated than just doing bonuses for Validation Day
• We’ll know pricing details about Alphonse when he goes up for order on 10/12
• There are two types of banning from the OCC: 1) Because you broke the rules and pissed off the admins after repeated infringements; 2) You pissed off Alex. It’s easier to come back from 1) by rallying the admins than 2), in which case Alex will let you know if he ever forgives you (This only happened once before, and Alex paid for it!).
• No information on any Zelda pieces until further into development and get through the two announced pieces (Sheikah Slate and Rider Link)
• Uncle Skabs has never been on the chopping block for potentially getting banned (so far)
• Numbers are written on statue bases with markers instead of with metal plates (or gold plates) to keep costs down–First 4 Figures wants to have adequate packaging that does the job and keeps the statue at a strong value in the marketplace; Alex knows the company’s customer base and that they tend to prefer lower prices to more elaborate packaging
• “We could come to your door and wipe your butt for you, but that will push the price out of the boundary where people are comfortable for their first resin figures.” — Alex Davis
• Bowser has not started being painted yet–Bowser is behind Varia Suit in production at that factory
• The Ornstein factory has delayed Guts because Guts came up for PO after Ornstein; Ornstein was moved away from the Varia Suit/Bowser factory
• “When I saw that Varia Suit was delayed, and Bowser was delayed, and they hadn’t even started Ornstein. I was like. Fuck. This. Shit. I pulled Ornstein from them because it was clear that they were going to dick about and it was going to take them too long to do it.” — Alex Davis
• Ornstein counter sample is already done in the new factory–moving it away from the Varia Suit Samus factory was the right decision
• Now that F4F has their own casting department, First 4 Figures can determine whatever factory they want to produce their statues–not beholden to any individual factory anymore
• Alex’s favorite Fullmetal Alchemist character is Roy Mustang
• The development for a PVC figure is quite similar to a resin statue, except that you don’t have to worry so much about a base with PVC and you’re limited in what you can do while keeping to a low-ish MSRP; what’s absolutely different is the production, which is vastly faster for PVC statues
• Alex Googles “MHA” for Jake Meyer: “Mental Health America”; Alex says that he’s open to discussing Jake’s mental health issues via PM or in the club
• Haruka from Yakuza? Let’s see if Kiryu comes out first.
• Sparx’s teeth were small and sort of hard to develop, but Spyro PVC overall wasn’t overly difficult
• Alex keeps forgetting about Banjo-Kazooie–3 weeks and running
• Snake SD and a lot more Dark Souls SD figures in development; “they’re really fucking cute”
• Oki Wolf Form was polled before the Okami Character poll, which is why Oki got an individual poll even though Ninetails placed higher than him in the Okami character poll
• Alex likes having a week for reservations and giving people a chance to decide what they want to buy before Validation Day–it’s like an event!
• Gift cards are coming in time for Christmas!
• The prototyping team at the factory is going to start working on Guts now that Ornstein’s counter sample is wrapped up
• No updates on Zelda releases
• PVC is much faster to bring from development to finished product than resins
• If Alex was an ice cream flavor, he would be Pina Colada
• Chocks would be Chunky Monkey ice cream
• F4F hasn’t tried to get the Studio Ghibli license during the last three years
• There’s absolutely time to get onto the Shiranui EX Wait List–still very likely to convert
• Castlevania PVC line? Anything’s a possibility.
• True Form Sonic PVC is at the duplication stage
• Let’s see how TF Sonic does before talking about more Sonic PVCs
• Spike just started production at the factory today with basic pre-production going on; still some time until pre-orders for Spike EX have to close
• Have to monitor the first round of Spyros that arrive to make sure he’ll ship safely around the world before the rest of the resin Spyros ship out
• When Alphonse goes up for pre-order, we’ll get an official Fullmetal Alchemist Character poll
• Will Mustang’s statue incorporate fire in some way? “Fire me if it doesn’t.” — Alex Davis
• Mario on Yoshi will be revealed next year
• There will be more Spyro franchise characters coming down the line, including Spyro Reignited resin; would love to have an OG Spyro PVC if Activision approves
• Where’s Genos? “Good question. I need a bit of motivation.”
• No news on Morrigan or Dante–“Morrigan is looking ace.”
• “I went fucking batshit crazy with Dante this week. I mean… I did my lovely warm management style.” — Alex Davis
• More work has been done on Chibiterasu
• Banjo orders will reopen a little bit later
• Ivy PO probably in mid-2019
• Grayfox is at least 3-4 months away, going to physical now
• Mumbo Jumbo would have to be a Kickstarter-styled statue
• Alex likes the idea of a rainbow pack of mini Jinjos–would probably be made in PVC/vinyl; colored Yoshis would be a bit more complicated
• Chocks likes the idea of a Red Bull can-sized Jinjo PVC (True Form); “Do people give a shit about Jinjos that much?” — Alex Davis
• Sonic and Tails diorama should be ready for painting/duplication in the middle of October
• Alex quite likes the Kill La Kill poll
• Shiranui and True Form Midna aren’t in production yet–but soon… ish
• Alex has to check on the status of cardholders
• Mini Aku Aku PO sooner rather than later
• Regular versions of PVCs could be sold on the website in the future when distributors aren’t reordering anymore–can look into this
• Number of points that can be redeemed from buying multiple PVCs can be tweaked–don’t want people pulling out the pamphlet from boxes and then putting it back to redeem many codes
• Mini packs of honeycombs and musical notes etc. “For sure.”
• Spyro PVC isn’t the best-selling F4F EX… yet.
• Darksiders license conversations are going bumpy and/or smooth [It’s hard to say–Alex is just kind of wagging his hand in the air]
• Sonic vs. Chopper resin diorama won’t be reprinted like the Sonic Boom8 PVCs
• Will talk to Sega at BLE about potential Kickstarter-like pre-orders
• Phoenix Wright revised colors are in the works
• Amaterasu PVC pre-order next year–being converted from resin prototype to PVC now
• Crystal Dragon pre-production samples being worked on now
• Katamari Damacy: “You guys didn’t show up; we ain’t gonna show up.”
• PVCs successfully moving forward is super-super-important and a key part of First 4 Figures’ strategy going forward
• Alex had a good reaction to the 600+ likes on the FMA Day post (especially knowing that Al is not going to be as popular as Ed)
• Delayed Amaterasu bust to coincide with the end of the 9-month plan, and won’t do that again–if there was a two-year payment plan for Alphonse, then people on that plan would get their statue when their plan is complete, even if the statue comes out a year earlier than the payment plan’s completion
• Will give advance warning when the cutoff for ordering Spike Exclusive comes
• If Mumbo Jumbo hit 600+ votes, then he should be able to sell 300+ Kickstarter-styled pre-orders, right?
• Alex is excited about a Banjo-Kazooie PVC to bring in more fans who could potentially buy resins of characters like Gruntila
• There are far more people on the resin Spyro EX Wait List than the regular resin Spyro Wait List, so the regular version is much more likely to convert
• Chock was spotted once a year ago without a hat at NYCC
• The hardest base that F4F has attempted is for Guts

Fullmetal Alchemist Alphonse Exclusive Edition pre-orders open up on the F4F Website on October 12th! Alphonse would be fully revealed on the F4F Q&A #90 next week, and I’ll close out with these words from CEO Alex Davis on Al’s impending pre-order: “Please show up fans of anime. Please. Please.”

See you next week, #F4Family!