97 down, 3 to go! The countdown to the landmark 100th First 4 Figures Q&A livestream is on, but there’s still several shows (and a couple pre-orders) until we get there! This week sees the first-ever Companion Series statue go up for order–Player 2 Green Shovel Knight! P2 Shovel Knight was saved from the Vault… while he find a home on your shelf? Plus: get the answers to these exhilarating questions and more:
WHO will be the next statue pre-order? (It’s the Dark Souls Mimic.)
WHAT is the next variant armor that will be released for Shovel Knight after green?
WHEN will F4F gift cards hopefully be good-to-go?
WHERE will the Alphonse Elric statue be produced?
WHY is a good sculpt and a bad paint job better than a bad sculpt and a good paint job?
HOW would collectors feel about the Q&As moving from weekly to every other week?
Announcements and the Week in Review:
- Alex on Crash Team Racing Remake with sarcastic voice: “I had no idea that was happening! None at all!”
- The Mortal Kombat license went with Alex’s ex-partner when he split from First 4 Figures a decade ago
- Shovel Knight Player 2 Green statue opens up for pre-order during this stream; considered the first “Companion Piece” in both the Shovel Knight series and overall; there will be no Validation for this statue as it’s a Companion Piece and there will be no individualized number on the bottom of the base–but those who authenticate the blue and/or gold Shovel Knights can retain their same number for this one; bottom of the base will still say how many total pieces were made
- Green Shovel Knight was temporarily vaulted, but saved from the Vault by collector votes for the Player 2 version
- Mail of Momentum Black Shovel Knight prototype has already been made, but F4F wants to space out the Shovel Knight variants; will probably go up for pre-order in another 6 months; these variants aren’t for everyone and aren’t taking slots from new pieces and pre-orders
- Hornet Ring Dark Souls Replica closing for orders on December 12th
- Marshall Law, Spike Spiegel, Psycho Mantis, Warp Star Kirby, Spyro PVC EX, Guts, Alphonse and Phoenix Wright pre-orders are all still open until production begins
- Alex thinks F4F has punched way above their weight and raised the bar in what they can produce content-wise with the number of people currently on the team
- Gift cards will hopefully be good-to-go by this time next week
- F4F isn’t all about the elite collectors and isn’t trying to be–wants to cater to the majority of collectors and not just those who have limitless purse-strings; but when F4F does do lower pricing, it needs to sell more pieces so that the bottom line can be met
- F4F’s entire setup is completely anti-elitist; it’s not about making only 10 pieces or 50 pieces; First 4 Figures wants anyone who likes a piece or has a love for a character to be able to get one; it’s not about having limited runs that can be flipped for as much money as possible; want the community to grow and new collectors to by able to purchase their first pieces from First 4 Figures
- Solid Snake samples arrived in the office last week; Shipping to Asia/Australia now and the rest of the world next month
- Hopefully they’ll be some hype and interest in the Green Shovel Knight statue because of SK’s appearance in the just-released Super Smash Bros. Ultimate video game
- Spyro PVC Color Variants are for those who wants them, and not for those who don’t–Alex knows that they’re not for everyone; all subject to licensor approval
- “What can we do that you can’t recap?”; Maybe a section of Alex and Chockles streaming video games or watching anime during the Q&A?; Future of the Q&A could have co-op gaming with collectors rather than just discussions with collectors; King of the Ring with Smash Bros. characters that have had F4F statues made? Lots of things that Alex & Chock can do once they have a new studio for the Q&A.
- The P2 Shovel Knight is expected to ship in the Blue Shovel Knight statue’s box, but with a sticker on the box denoting that it’s the Green Companion Piece
- Looking forward to the evolution of the F4F Streams; Chocks and Ting have to continue on their quest to find an appropriate studio
- Shovel Knight Player 2 will come with authenticity cards; EX with exclusive fish head and regular; there is no Signature Edition for Green Shovel Knight; there could be bonus points for the first 24 hours for future Companion Pieces–haven’t really thought about it yet
- FAQ is posted on the F4F Website now that explains what Companion Pieces are and their ordering process
- Alex is going to the factory this week to see the Bowser pre-production samples; will be nice to get him going again
- Ornstein going through some color tweaking of the gold at the licensors’ request
- Changes have been made to the cancellation fees on the website; customers will be charged $5 penalties per payment now instead of $20; the $20 was a fixed amount carryover of the old website from when all payments made were much larger; hopefully lowering the cancellation fees doesn’t lead to a whole rush of cancelled orders from collectors
- Meta-Ridley’s wings tower above the desks in the F4F office–Alex can see them from across the office (and even posted a sneak peek photo of them taken from his desk in the OCC )
- F4F Custom Tape has arrived! 4-5 different colors are on the way and will be shown off soon.
- Phil wanted to know who would be interested in Superbook and Flying House, but the response so far in the club… hasn’t been the strongest!
- Alex and Chock weren’t too surprised to see the new Crash Team Racing debut trailer–they’ve got great poker faces
- No combo pack for blue and green Shovel Knights since the blue EX is on Wait List now
- Alucard art print is in the house and looking snazzy; has a lovely matte finish with pattern printed on it
- Haven’t really thought about whether or not they’ll release art prints after-the-fact
- Zelda art prints will never happen–tried, but it can’t be done
- Counter sample of Guts should be ready at the factory very, very soon
- “What do you think about F4F Q&As going to bi-weekly?” — Alex Davis; the streaming numbers have gone down and the show is struggling to get 100 weekly viewers
- “I show so much during the week… Would it actually make sense to just show stuff on the stream and not show anything during the week?”
- “Are the stream numbers going down because we drip and drab all the information all the time continuously?”
- [Personally, I think the stream numbers are down because of the lack of major releases and reveals over the course of the last six month. There have only been a handful of statues put up for PO since summer, and it’s hard to get collectors excited enough to tune in when there aren’t any new reveals or releases from the major licenses such as Dark Souls, Zelda, Mario, Okami and so forth. I think the numbers will be stronger this week for Mimic, and much improved once the big Nintendo pieces like Ridley, Mario on Yoshi and Rider Link show up. Daylight savings has also likely decreased numbers, as I’m even having a hard time dragging my own lazy butt out of bed to watch the show Fridays. –Dabid]
- Alex has been working a lot on the new website over the past week; still a lot to work on and change, but the progress made so far is encouraging; in Alex’s mind the product pages are going to be amazing
- Maybe the new King of the Ring (#3) will be ready to begin around the start of the year
Tempation Thursday (TT) Polls:
- Fairy Tail TT: 177 ‘No’ Votes, 151 ‘Yes’ Votes
- Strider TT #131 Next Week!
- Celeste TT #132 in 2 Weeks!
- Jo-Jo’s Bizarre Adventures TT #133 in 3 Weeks!; Alex tried to get this license back in the day but was rejected–F4F is more “profesh” now and could try again if the demand is there
- This week’s hashtag is #F4FP2 for a chance to win 500 Rewards Points chosen at random
The Q&A!:
- No work done yet on a Reignited Crystal Dragon of any kind
- No Darksiders news to report
- A good sculpt and a bad paint job is better than a bad sculpt and a good paint job because “you cannot polish a piece of shit”. Paint is much easier to fix.
- Pre-orders for Meta-Ridley and Nito will be super-far apart
- Shovel Knight Player 2 can be tacked onto the same production as P1 Shovel Knight and Ornate Plate versions since the tooling already exists
- Alex never found that there was enough push for the Metroid Gunship line to continue
- No word on Yakuza
- Nintendo hasn’t said anything at all to Alex about doing anything to celebrate Ocarina of Time’s 20th Anniversary
- No news on Chibiterasu
- Not willing to give any indications on Yu-Gi-Oh
- Psycho Mantis EX orders will have a warning given before they close
- Spyro PVCs are expected to ship toward the end of the month
- Amaterasu PVC Pre-Orders will be a while off since the transition from resin prototype to PVC prototype is being made
- Alex is wondering if collectors would rather have PVCs go up for order when they’re at the resin prototype stage (where changes are still possible) and not the PVC prototype stage (at which the molds have been made and changes aren’t possible)–collectors could early order, but the wait would be longer; Alex thinks that what they’ll probably do is show pieces earlier at the resin state but not solicit them
- Ridley pre-orders will start in early 2019
- Haven’t checked Alphonse sales recently
- Alex wants to have a segment in the stream to meet other members of the team/staff, have people call in, etc.
- “Can we even be profesh…?” –Alex Davis
- Shout out to the Inuyasha TT ‘Yes’ votes!
- Something is penciled in for a pre-order for Q&A #100; it has not escaped Alex & Chocks’ minds that this milestone is coming up, but are juggling items for pre-order right now; so there may or may not be a major pre-order for this amazing milestone; there will be a lot of effort and news for the 100th episode, though
- “We’re still collectors’ best-kept secret!”
- “Even the custom makers are better known than us!”
- The first statues Alex worked on personally were probably Magic The Gathering or Tales from Midnight
- The best-selling F4F statue thus far has been the Majora’s Mask replica
- Solaire SD isn’t on the release calendar yet because there’s difficulty with the production on the Praise the Sun Edition
- Varia Suit Samus release likely before Rider Link pre-order
- System would probably melt down if the ability to add rewards points to existing orders was attempted to be integrated; would require a whole rewriting of the payment system
- Alex and Chock love what they’ve seen of Sekiro so far
- Want the Armstrongs from Fullmetal Alchemist? Support the line and F4F will be there.
- It will be a few months before we see more sneaks of Sonic True Form PVC
- Peggy will do a post looking for volunteers closer to the date of Emerald City Comic Con
- Alex thinks it’s cool that Persona 5 Joker will be in Smash Bros. Ultimate; “an honor”; “very very cool”
- If everything goes according to plan, do not miss Episode 100!
- Silver the Hedgehog end of edition batch is in production now
- Banjo-Kazooie revisions are almost done
- Can’t say for sure if Conker will make it up for pre-order before the end of the year; will be very early in 2019 if not
- Crash Team Racing statue–Alex will let us know details closer to the time-frame for the PO; definitely won’t already be released by June; if the exclusive had an extra item, it would be looking mighty tight
- Those who bought Cat Mario (not Tanooki Mario) and authenticated will have their number carry over to Bowser
- Alphonse will be made at the Snake/Ornstein/Guts factory
- No confirmed changes for Alphonse
- Alex isn’t sure how he feels about art prints; not sure if the rest of the SOTN line will come with them
- Nothing to announce regarding Persona 5
- Ornstein SD’s color will also be tweaked to the same color as the resin statue
- Can’t ship just the Solaire SD Exclusives from the Combo Packs without the Praise the Sun SD; can’t split and ship just half of the item
- One more thing…
…And that’s it for another week! Learn anything new that caught your attention this week, #F4Fans? Who’s coming back next week for the long-awaited Mimic launch?