A tragedy almost occurred last year, when sluggish sales on the First 4 Figures Fighter Kirby statue almost led to the premature death of the figure series. But fans rallied for a release of an iconic version of Kirby that would be the definitive Kirby statue many collectors were asking for, and F4F listened: the First4Figures Warp Star Kirby Exclusive statue is now up for order! How long was this piece in development? What were the hardest parts of making it? How many cans tall is this statue? All these questions and more answered in the F4F Making of Warp Star Kirby Documentary and Q&A Recap!
As usual, the best way to experience these Q&As is to watch them yourself. In fact–I’ve linked the video for you right below. Just hit the play button! But–!! If you don’t have the time or just want the cliff notes? I’ve gotcha covered. 😉
2:23 – Tommy Zierille Svensson: “Kirby and the Warp Star are iconic for the franchise. When did you decide it was the right time to bring him out now over other Kirbys?”
- Warp Star Kirby is the 4th entry in the Kirby series, following Sword Kirby, Meta Knight and Fighter Kirby.
- The selection of Warpstar Kirby now has to do with the F4F Official Collector’s Club Facebook Group. Members of the club were saying that they’d like a “regular” Kirby statue where he doesn’t have a power-up.
- Alex felt that just having a plain Kirby on his own might not be “enough”, so he decided to pair the regular Kirby with the iconic Warp Star seen throughout Kiry games (and Super Smash Bros!).
- This is meant to be the iconic Kirby–the one Kirby most people who would only buy one Kirby would have in their collection. For people who like Kirby but might only want to have one statue of him.
- It was really the noise and requests in the F4F OCC that became louder and louder and hard to ignore that determined it was time for this version of Kirby to be started in late 2016.
6:18 – Jake Meyer: “How influential was the club when deciding to make Warp Star Kirby?”
- The club caused First 4 Figures to start work on development of this particular statue
- An official #F4FSaveWarpStarKirby Temptation Thursdays poll was posted in summer 2017 to gauge if members if the F4FOCC were actually interested in buying this Warpstar Kirby statue. The poll hit over 500 votes quickly
- The club had the power to determine if First4Figures would go to the next stage of development on this statue–and because of the positive reaction from the “incredibly influential” club to the 3-D concept images of the statue, F4F decided to go ahead with the next stages of development on this piece
- The Facebook F4F OCC
10:06 – Jessica Castick: “What did you learn from making/designing the other Kirbys that you used when working on Warp Star?”
- This is the third version of Kirby that First 4 Figures has made, and Meta Knight also has similar characteristics.
- There are certain things that all Kirbys share, such as the fact that he’s a perfect sphere–a round ball
- The eyes are also almost the same as the other Kirby statues F4F has produced–an oval shape with white ovals inside and darker lower portions
- However, Fighter Kirby and Sword Kirby both had “angry faces” with a sort of eyebrows shaping the tops of his oval eyes and giving him an angry look
- By removing the angry expression, the continuous shape of the eye ovals are continued straightforwardly
- F4F knew what to do with Warp Star’s eyes because of the licensor feedback they’d gotten on the Sword and Fighter versions in the past
- Experience gained from working on the cheeks of the previous Kirbys could also be directly applied to the development of the Warp Star Kirby figure
- The pose itself on Kirby is to illustrate expression and movement in difficult ways–had to revise the sculpt of his arms quite a few times to
- The experience from creating the coloring of the previous Kirbys was also able to be directly carried over to this new version of the character
16:37 – Dabid Kuhrt: “Warp Star Kirby’s left arm has changed a lot from the original concept that we saw of it! Can you talk about the evolution of his left arm?”
- The left arm of Kirby was really challenging to develop, because Kirby is really malleable and deforms a lot, but the shaping of his arm must also remain logical
- Warp Star Kirby’s right arm looks like it’s straight out with his palm “wide open”
- You can see quite clearly what part of the statue is the right arm and which part is the perfectly round body of the character
- Because you can clearly see which part is the body and which part is the right arm, you can tell the exact thickness of the right arm
- The left arm must have the same thickness as the right arm where it comes out of his spherical body, but then flattens against his body because of the way that it’s posed stretching reaching forward
- The thickness at the tip of both arms also matches, as it logically should
- Making the arms match logically was looked at under an absolute microscope during the development of this statue
- The arms were also much rounded and without a distinct tip in the 3-D concepts of the F4F Warp Star Kirby statue
23:07 – Giovani Colimorio: “What was the hardest part to get right on this statue?”
- This was sort of hijacked by Dabid’s question [Sorry!] in that Kirby’s left arm was really difficult
- This was pretty straight-forward, but there was a lot of feedback from the licensor to the point where the licensor was giving a lot of input on the fine details
- All of the details on the base were also quite challenging and went through many revisions
24:26 – Cody Weaver: “What were some of the design inspirations or guidelines you went through when designing the base? What did you want to accomplish?”
- Will discuss the base while going through a discussion of all the details of the entire statue
- Tons and tons of mini stars in the clouds–“a lot”
- Slipstream coming out from under the star as the Warp Star bends down into the clouds
- Like all the other Kirbys, this one has eyes with a gradient that goes from a darker blue to a lighter blue as you go downwards
- The Warp Star was far too thin when first designed, needed to add some cushioning to get the shape right (and for Kirby’s comfort!); was also given a frosted effect to match the beautiful yellow of the Warp Stars seen in the games themselves
- The paint scheme on Kirby himself is consistent with the past versions of the character that First 4 Figures has produced, as it should be
- There’s also a subtle paint shading between the grooves of the Warp Star for adding shadows and depth
- Kirby’s eyes and cheeks are sculpted onto his body, and there’s actually a cut for his mouth this time that you can feel inside of
- This Kirby also has a happy smiling face, which neither of the other Kirbys have
- Because he’s riding on the Warp Star, which is angled and tilting downward, Kirby’s feet are curved rather than standing flat onto the star
- Speed of the statue is conveyed by tilting the warpstar downward (like a helicopter)–the faster you go, the more the tilt; the more the star is tilted, the faster Kirby is going to be traveling, which is why the Warp Star is tilted so deeply
- Kirby’s eyes are still looking straight into the camera, however, which is why his feet have been bent and placed in the way that they have logically (in a surfing stance with one foot in front of the other)
- Alex likes to have a connection between the collector looking at the piece and the character, which is why he prefers to have the statue’s eyes looking straight back at the collector; Alex isn’t a big fan of statues where the eyes are looking away from the collector
On The Base:
- The slipstream is also coming out of the back of the Warp Star to create a sense of motion and movement and going forward; this can’t be accomplished via cloth or hair since Kirby doesn’t have either of those!
- Slipstream has grooves in it that F4F could add extra deco to; the slipstream is made a semi-transparent resin and is subtle and not overpowering, it can’t even be seen from a front view at all
- The slipstream has a nice gloss and sheen to it, whereas the Warp Star is matte in order to better separate the two elements of the base
- Clouds are normally just kind of “there” and “still”, but in this instance there’s an object piercing through the front of the clouds and causing them to spread out (while the back of the clouds are “bigger” since the warpstar isn’t cutting through them)
- The clouds are all hand-sculpted and not identical–the clouds aren’t completely mirrored symmetrically or unnatural looking
- Subtle differences between the clouds in the front; different sizes, but not completely different
- There are 14 sculpted translucent resin stars around the clouds on Warp Star Kirby’s base (15 if you count the warpstar)
- The star locations break up the symmetry by being strategically placed around the clouds and being in different sizes; the stars have a translucent gloss to them to separate them from the matte look of the clouds (and because stars twinkle-twinkle)
- The bottom section of the base is a bright, colorful mixture of pink, purple, blue and white with sparkles and various shapes; these details are all hand-sculpted and raised on the base and will be really complicated in production–this may actually be more time and effort in production than painting Kirby himself
- The bottom of the case has a beautiful cosmos, galaxy feel to it since Kirby jumps onto his Warp Star to traverse the universe and go from planet to planet; these ideas for the base all came directly from Warpstar, Inc. (the licensor for Kirby)
- The five elements of this statue all come together as one to really make this concept have the motion and accuracy that First 4 Figures intended when they were considering and creating this piece
Dimensions:
- First4Figures Warp Star Kirby statue is just about 3 cans tall
- Height: 12″
- Width: 12″
- Depth: 15″
- Weight: 7.56 kg
56:23 – Shout-Outs from Alex Davis!
- Jessica Castick
- Tommy Zereile Svensson
- Brandon Evans
- Cody Weaver
- John Doolittle
- Ian Tavis Casimir
- Matthew Sherwin
- Yvonne Horrocks
- Alessio Bucci
- Derek Baker
57:24 The Exclusive Version of Warpstar Kirby!
- Warp Star Kirby EX available for order exclusively through the First 4 Figures Website!
- No prizes for those who guessed it, since there’s clearly a black button on the back of the base throughout the documentary
- The Warp Star and the 14 mini stars all light up on the Exclusive Warp Star Kirby statue!
- The beautiful glow of the warpstar gives it a feeling of floatiness, and also adds emphasis to the color on the slipstream behind it
- Right now there’s only an “always-on” mode for the lights, but pending licensor approval, First4Figures would like to add a twinkling mode where the lights on the stars turn on and off at different times
- Adding lights makes tons of sense for this statue
- Comes with a removable, rechargeable battery (except to countries like Australia which won’t allow a battery like that to be shipped in)
1:04:44 Alessio Bucci – “Can you show us all the Kirby line together?”
- Fantastic lineup (although Fighter Kirby isn’t in the office right now)
- Perfectly-scaled figures
- Colors and sizes of the Kirbys match perfectly
- Sword Kirby is significantly lighter since he doesn’t have the large, chunky cloud base
- There are no variants right now for Warp Star Kirby, but it’s certainly on the list of things for First4Figures to consider; no guarantees, but Alex would love to see a Triple Pack with Shadow Sword Kirby, Warp Star Shadow Kirby and Fighter Shadow Kirby (if the licensor would approve of it)–is that something that collectors would be interested in seeing for the future?
…And that’s all she (okay, I) wrote for this week’s documentary recap! Learn anything fascinating from this Making of video, #F4Fans? Now that you know all the work and intricacies that went into the development of this statue, are YOU ordering the Exclusive Warp Star Kirby?