F4F Recap Bonus Edition! There’s under a day to order the First 4 Figures Aku Aku Mask Prop Replica before validation for low numbers begins, but while we all wait to validate, let’s answer some burning questions like: “Is the Aku Aku Mask Wall-Mountable?”, “How many soda cans high is the mask?”, “Why isn’t the Aku Aku mask made of real wood?!”, “Why is there a wicked cool gold variant?” and more!

While I wrote the fastest recap of last week’s First4Figures Q&A ever on Black Friday (since I was live recapping it while it was still going on), F4F had a bonus treat for us to close out the week as well: a documentary on the development of the Crash Bandicoot Aku Aku Mask!

The Aku Aku Mask Documentary is a pretty enjoyable hour-long video, and you should all watch it. But if you don’t want to watch it, but want all the best info from the video anyway…? I’ve got you covered! Read on for the recap…

“Is the Aku Aku Mask Wall Mountable?”

No—F4F decided not to pursue making the Aku Aku Mask Prop Replica Wall-Mountable for several reasons. One reason is that the base is beautiful and deserves to be displayed, and it would be a shame to lose the base.

Another, more logistical reason, is that First4Figures didn’t want to deal with the risk of breakage with mounting the masks. There would be a big risk of the mounting equipment being installed improperly, causing the mask to fall off the wall and break—and potentially break other statues under it as well.

Finally, the Aku Aku Mask statue is really thin and slightly curved inwards—it wouldn’t be practical to try to install wall mounts into the mask.

“How many pieces will the Aku Aku Mask separate into for shipping?”

This hasn’t been fully determined yet, but at the moment the mask will ship in at least five pieces. All four of the colored feathers are individual pieces during shipping that you will attach to the mask yourself.

It hasn’t been decided yet if the mask itself will be separable from the base, or if the leaf on the chin will be magnetized or permanently attached.

“Is the Aku Aku Mask to-scale with the Crash Bandicoot PVC or the upcoming resin Crash Bandicoot Classic Statue?”

No—the Aku Aku Mask is life-size, whereas neither of the two Crash statues are life-size—there’s no relationship between the sizes of the Aku Aku Mask or either Crash Bandicoot Statue.

“Is the mask heavy?”

YES!! While the Aku Aku Mask First4Figures statue may be thin, it’s definitely not light! The statue weighs 7.72 kg (about 17 pounds)!

“Did First 4 Figures ever consider making the mask out of actual wood?”

No, F4F never considered using actual wood as the material for the statue. Using wood would cause all kinds of potential issues with customs regulations, with customs potentially having to inspect the masks and answer questions like “Has the wood been defumigated?” and “Are there bugs in the wood?”

Resin can be made to look like wood and have a wooden texture easily, so it was an easy decision to make the Aku Aku Mask from resin and not actual wood. The prop replica will easily get through customs because it just looks like wood and isn’t actually wood.

“How many soda cans tall is the Aku Aku Mask?”

The mask is just under six 300 mL soda cans tall in height. Even so, the mask is really thin, so its footprint is actually quite small.

“What changes have been made to the statue since it debuted at New York Comic Con 2017?”

Activision graciously allowed First 4 Figures to display the Aku Aku Mask at NYCC 2017 before the final approval of the design of the mask, and there have been a few major changes since the show:

• At NYCC, the crate was the same color as the mask itself. On the final version, a bit more orange has been added to the crate to differentiate it from the mask.
• While the NYCC 2017 prototype of the mask had the feathers painted one solid color with stripes, the feathers have been differently ordered and in different colors since then. More detailing has been added to the feathers, and there are subtle color changes throughout the stalks now.
• A metallic brown sheen has been added to the rivers since NYCC 2017.

“Will there be more Crash Bandicoot life-size prop replicas in the future?”

If this mask is successful, we may see an Uka Uka Mask or even an N-Sane Trilogy Aku Aku Mask Replica produced down the road.

“Is this the fastest that F4F has ever brought a statue through development to pre-order?”

No. While the development for Aku Aku was very fast (it’s been in development for only about six months), the Crash Bandicoot PVC was one of the fastest development times ever because it had to be ready to coincide with the video game’s launch window.

“Did the Majora’s Mask prop replica have any influence on the Aku Aku Aku Mask’s development?”

Yes!! Every aspect of the Aku Aku Mask has been designed to be similar to Majora’s Mask so that they’ll look amazing together.

It was clear from the beginning that First4Figures wanted the masks to be similar in presence and size from the beginning. Knowing that Aku Aku has to be similar dimensionally to Majora’s Mask was extremely focusing. Both masks have similar depth, width, height and base size.

“What was the most difficult part of the development of the AA Mask?”

The only difficult in the design of this statue was nailing down the design for the base. The crate/whirlwind effect base development was a challenge, but giving the vortex a lot of surface area allowed F4F to balance the very thin mask safely.

“Why was the base design of the exploding crate and whirlwind chosen?”

Alex specifically wanted to avoid transparent poles holding up the AA Mask, and having the mask sitting on top of an unbroken crate or wumpa fruit didn’t make sense.

The Aku Aku Mask spins out of a smashed crate in the game, so having the vortex and broken crate makes sense and gave artistic space without the constraints of having the unbroken crate.

The exploded crate design comes directly from the game, so you can see the corresponding AA Mask markings around the broken pieces of the crate on the base.

“Is the mask itself just painted one color?” 

Nope! The actual mask has multiple color tones on it—not just one. The painters use hairy brushes and thick paint to make fine lines on the statue of a slightly different color, creating streaks of line similar to wood grain lines.

Some other random facts from the documentary that I wanted to bullet point…

• The studio lighting is really bright so it’s a little hard to see the eye lights on the Exclusive Aku Aku Mask in the Documentary
• The lights give the exclusive edition of the statue “a little bit of extra life”
• This is the first resin Crash Bandicoot product, but the life-size prop line is separate from the upcoming resin Crash statues line of characters including Neo-Cortex, Classic Crash, etc.
• The Crash PVC statue went up for order in June; F4F believed the PVC made a collection with a lot of new collectors already
• Mask chosen for pre-order before resin Classic Crash because PVC Crash was just released and because club members voted to have the mask available first
• Classic Crash Bandicoot resin statue pre-order probably in early Q1 2018
• F4F is making a limited edition Gold Aku Aku Mask Variant because the mask turns gold if you get a second one in-game
• There won’t be a regular/non light-up version of the gold mask
• If you’re feeling invincible, get the gold version!
• The Gold Edition is available for 8 days only—until December 1st—and will not have a Last Chance Weekend available. Order the Gold Aku Aku Mask before 12/1 if you want it!

…And that’s a wrap! (Hopefully) everything you ever wanted to know about the First 4 Figures Aku Aku Mask’s development!

Learn anything new and exciting, gamers? Are you buying one (or both!) of the first entry in the Crash Bandicoot Life Size Replica line, or is this wooden witch doctor just not for you?