The list of video game licenses that First 4 Figures holds has expanded rapidly over the last year, including the blockbuster announcements of Metal Gear Solid and the Activision licenses Spyro the Dragon and Crash Bandicoot. And this week, the family  grew again, when F4F announced the acquisition of licenses for the Rare franchises Banjo-Kazooie and Conker. Never one to leave their fans waiting, sneak peeks of the F4F Banjo-Kazooie statue have already begun…

Banjo-Kazooie had the most successful Temptation Thursday (TT) poll of all-time up until Pokémon a few weeks back, so it would surprise no one that First4Figures was very interested in the license for Banjo.

What surprised many fans, though, was that F4F had already approached Rare about the license way back in June 2016! The TT poll was actually a red herring all along, as Banjo-Kazooie was actually long in-development! And shortly after the announcement, we got our first sneak peeks of Banjo, Kazooie and even Conker!

The first thing F4F CEO shared with the First4Figures Official Collector’s Club was a sneak peek of a fully-painted Kazooie wing prototype! The detailing on Kazooie’s wing blows away that of the Zelda Loftwing wings from a few years back—F4F has come a long way in not so long of a time!

Although not yet in physical form, a small snippet of a 3D render of Conker was also shown. At a glance this art is instantly recognizable as the iconic artwork of Conker on Throne from Conker’s Bad Fur Day, and Facebook member Kei Meara even overlaid the render onto that artwork (short above). Yep—it’s a perfect match!

Conker on throne is something of a holy grail concept to me as far as statues go, so F4F definitely got my attention with this preview.

Finally, following up that sneak peek, we also got our first preview of a very, very early prototype of Banjo himself! Obviously the paint on this Banjo-Kazooie statue is going to eventually be a lot more detailed, but this gives us something of an idea of the basic colors that First 4 Figures is thinking about for the palette right now.

The detailed fur on Banjo the bear is looking good, and that huge plug in his upper belly is very suspicious. As the hole seems too high for Banjo’s belt, I think we may have a flying Banjo statue on the way, with that socket meant to be where the display base will plug into the piece. Hmm.

The First 4 Figures Banjo-Kazooie Statue is expected to go up for order in early Q2 2018, with no pre-order window announced yet for Conker. Since Conker still looks to be in the very early stages of development, it seems unlikely that we’ll see a pre-order for him prior to the latter half of 2018.

What do you think of our first look at the First4Figures Rare statues, video gamers? Are you happy with what we’ve seen so far and what we can guess about the poses for these pieces, and can you see yourself picking up either of these statues in 2018?