Coming off of last week’s momentous Q&A where the Dark Souls SD Solaire Exclusive & Praise the Sun Editions went up for order, Alex and Chock are back again for the First 4 Figures Q&A #73! Not only is the new Boom8 Knuckles & Tails Combo Pack now up for order, but Alex and Chock will be enjoying delicious Choco Burger snacks, giving away Dark Souls Remastered and answering copious amounts of questions from collectors, regarding topics from across the F4F spectrum such as Rider Link, Uka Uka Mask, Metal Gear Solid and more!

Announcements & The Week in Review:

• True Form Midna Exclusive & Definitive Edition pre-orders are only available until the 12th of June–next Tuesday! Make sure you jump on it now before it goes to the Wait List!
• Stick around until the end of the show, because Alex & Chocks have something that they want to show everyone…
• F4F will be attending ACG in Hong Kong and GamesCom in Germany as their only two conventions this year
• Solaire SD launch stream went smoothly
• Artorias SD EX samples arrived at the office and look good
• Alex went down to the factory on Tuesday and saw Snake and Mugen; Mugen is ready to be packed and also survived the dreaded DDT drop test
• Once Mugen is in the marketplace, we’ll see how things go for Samurai Champloo and F4F Anime
• It was a little sad seeing how few Mugen Day One cards there were to sign
• Cardholder designs–will print out from the 3D Printer to see how they look and go from there
• When you work with a factory for the first time, you have to consider exactly what type of resin products the workers are used to making
• There’s a huge difference between quality resin and shit resin; factory workers have a certain style and mindset, and it’s not easy to go from doing shitty quality painting exceptionally to high-quality painting for high-end statues
• The factory Alex visited has space and capabilities to make life-size items, and has workers used to doing high-quality painting in that scale–Alex would love to be able to do life-size items
• New Amaterasu Resin statue being made to subsidize the cost of what’s expected to be a low-selling PVC will use the PVC pose/design; this resin Amaterasu will likely be 1/4 and only be put up for order after the Amaterasu PVC is up in the marketplace (although the resin will officially be announced as soon as the PVC goes up for order)
• F4F wants people to be informed that a resin of the PVC Amaterasu is coming so that they have a choice of which version they’d prefer [if not both!]
• Life-Size Bowser would be sweet
• Upcoming Yoshi is now at the physical stage
• Sometimes something looks conceptually dope, but then F4F goes further and is like “Meh” and throws a design into the Vault; this happens more and more often now because of the F4F OCC Facebook club and the intense scrutiny of members
• Mega Man Zero was initially cancelled because of low pre-orders, but was revived after a campaign in the F4FOCC; the original prototypes were completely smashed to piece, however, so F4F had to invest in completely remaking the prototypes and molds; then decided to redo the proportions after showing it at NYCC 2017; however, there was such a negative reaction to the new version of the head shown at NYCC that the head is being redone once again now–thus, this is why the Zero pre-order has been delayed
• Dark Souls Remastered Giveaway Blogs are being posted daily over on the F4F Blog
• Alphonse has been approved and is planned to be shown at ACG in Hong Kong
• 850+ votes and Alex will have a conversation with Aniplex about Kill La Kill (currently at 760+ votes)
• Alex Davis reads his rap battle with members of the OCC aloud–the #F4FRap is pretty much the greatest thing ever (and I included a screenshot of a piece of it below)

Temptation Thursday (TT) Polls & King of the Ring:

• Vagrant Story TT: 82 Votes ‘Yes’, 141 Votes ‘No’; Very Quiet for this; Rally if you want this
• Zone of the Enders TT: 126 ‘Yes’, 108 ‘No’; Keep up sharing this out if you’re interested
• Rocket Knight Adventures TT next week
• Sailor Moon TT in 2 weeks
• This week’s hashtag is #F4F
• This week’s King of the Ring matchup had to be postponed because of technical difficulties with the Facebook poll feature; the next matchup will be Lucky Cat Mario vs. Ryo
• Shadow the Hedgehog lost to Artorias in last week’s F4F KOTR matchup

Sonic Boom8 Series 2 PVC Figures:

• Combo Pack 2 includes Volume 3 Tails and Volume 4 Knuckles
• Will be sold as a combo pack for $45 USD through F4F Partnerships with GNF Toyz
• Combo Pack 2 pre-order opening right after the Q&A. Pack 1 is also available again on the F4F website due to popular demand.
• Chocks is a Tails Man and not a Knuckles Man, though he was always confused how Tails can catch up to Sonic when Sonic is the fastest thing alive

Alex and Chocks have test shots in the office of the GNF Toyz Series 2 Boom8 Tails and Knuckles figures

The Q&A!:

• SD Solaire will very likely not be released before resin Solaire; but resins take their time and are very manual whereas PVCs can be pumped out much faster; it may be quite close due to the nature of the difference of materials and their corresponding production times
• Alex likes the idea of having a photo competition for statues when they ship out as an incentive for collectors to post photos of their statues that arrive in perfect condition
• Alex’s lips are sealed on Happy Mask Salesman; still needs to have a followup meeting with Nintendo following up on their Licensing Expo meetup
• Some movement on the Onion Bro plush, but it’s still going to be a bit of a while; working through that
• Next Dark Souls statue up for order will be the resin Mimic statue, with the Ornstein SD PVC after that
• There’s a possibility that F4F may or may not have some items on display at the Bandai Namco booth at E3 2018 next week; fingers crossed that something arrived safely and will be fully shown for the first time there to the public
• F4F would love for Skies of Arcadia HD to be announced at E3 next week; Chocks has heard leaks of games rumored to be shown; Alex would also like remakes of games like Perfect Dark Zero; it would be great to see remastered game franchises that don’t have the hype necessary now to sell statues
• Talking about resin Chibi and Oki statues for Okami fans
• Will use UV again for pieces where it makes sense
• Would like to see more flexibility with Flexipay payment plans, but need more resources in that department and have other IT things to implement first
• Will probably do a Modern Metal Sonic popularity poll–may switch Metal Sonic around with Modern Amy Rose, who’s looking really good
• SD PVCs are 100% harder to make than the regular PVCs
• If F4F were going to make Mipha, F4F would definitely start by showing Nintendo the artist render going around
• Alex knows the next Zelda piece planned after Rider Link is
• Alex doesn’t believe any of the Zelda series are officially over in statue form; there’s always a possibility to revisit any line (although they may be in a different form such as OOT)
• If F4F could, they’d release one Zelda statue a month–but collectors, Nintendo and F4F can’t handle it; one Zelda statues every 3-4 months would be ideal, though
• Need to hire more IT people to implement things like a payment calendar showing when payment plan payments will be coming out
• Chocks and Alex have moved on to enjoying their Petit Choco Pies snacks
• The IT guys are working hard literally every single day
• If you order both an EX and a Definitive Edition Midna, you’ll get two different numbers
• Skull Knight is now in the 3-D stage; is being done without his horse because F4F doesn’t believe that their market can sustain a $1500 1:4 scale horse
• Snake statue confirmed coming in a couple months in 2018–E-Mails sent out saying Q3 2019 were in error
• Spike’s cigarette end is painted as if it’s lit
• Genos’ pre-order is likely pushed to 2019
• Glow in the Dark Paint will be used for Shiranui’s tentacles: “It will be done.”
• Definitive Editions are here to stay where it makes sense–something that goes beyond regular and exclusive  and allows F4F to be a bit more creative than normal.
• Metal Sonic needs to be tested with a poll, past polls have been very lukewarm in response; more confident in Amy Rose
• Definitely want to look into Sonic PVCs in the future
• Psycho Mantis PO is 2-3 months away
• Sif is currently in casting again
• Nothing to report Zelda-wise
• No F4F booth at San Francisco Comic Con–only Hong Kong and Germany cons this year
• Warp Star Kirby is the next piece in the Kirby line
• Bookends can be restrictive design-wise by forcing people to look at a piece horizontally; could be good for side-scrollers like Sonic
• Chocks wouldn’t mind a Sonic loop-de-loop fish bowl
• Keep voting for Kill La Kill if you want it
• Phoenix Wright Definitive Edition won’t be a display case–will be something else
• Phoenix Wright is looking tight
• Let’s have another conversation about #FinishTheLine after Mugen is released
• Working hard on Crystal Dragon–should be up for pre-order relatively soon-ish
• Mario on Yoshi has to be duplicated and approved by Nintendo before painting
• No Kamina updates just yet
• Haven’t decided on a Faye pose yet; still needs refining
• Rider Link unlikely to come with Hylian Shield
• Smaller statues such as the Mario Leaf and Bell and Crash Crates possible with Definitive Editions
• What a crazy 20th anniversary for Banjo-Kazooie it would be if his statue were to go up for order on June 29th, the 20th Anniversary of the release of Banjo-Kazooie
• Hopefully we’ll see Mimic for ourselves very, very soon
• If stars align and there are approvals, F4F would have a conversation with Rare about a pre-order for Banjo-Kazooie June 29th
• Bloody Guts selling significantly higher than Non-Bloody
• Probably won’t bring Guts to Gamescom, since’s it a gaming show
• Alex would sign Sav’s butt if Sav signed Alex’s first
• There are a ton of franchises that Alex would like to put some F4F magic to
• 2019 likely for the first Dark Souls II or III statue
• If you cut Alex, he bleeds F4F
• Alex always says that if you get into a fight or feel uncomfortable with someone in the club, then you block them; this goes for Alex as well–if insulting behavior is directed at Alex, he separates himself from the company by blocking that person from his personal account and not blocking them from the club; Alex doesn’t feel he should kick anyone out of the club for a personal issue, but he shouldn’t have to see something himself if he doesn’t want to
• If there is a pattern of consistent order history where someone is really, really nitpicking minor defects, F4F reserves the right of not wanting to do business with someone anymore; this needs to be a consistent pattern where F4F is losing money every single time, and not something that will happen if you have one or two defects
• Nothing to say about Ciaran
• 1:6 statues will come–1:6 statues will be returning to F4F
• Working on tweaks to Definitive Edition True Form Midna
• F4F has a great relationship with Sega and could talk to them at any given time about Virtua Fighter, but F4F still has stock of the Akira statue years later
• Remind Alex to post a new Aika poll
• A lot more than 5 or 6 unannounced projects in development
• 50K reveal is Future Alex and Future Chocks’ problem
• Golden Sun TT needs some TLC
• PVCs also fall under the guinea pig shipping procedure
• Shiranui probably won’t have the little black paint brush on her tail
• Looking at all options for Zero but probably won’t redesign the whole statue
• Green Shovel Knight is on the backburner
• Future Shovel Knight statues would likely not get Definitive Editions
• It’s too late for Definitive Editions to save the Pac-Man line
• No movement on Dead Space
• Looking like ‘Yes’ for Kiryu
• Kart Crash looking like ‘No’
• Would not go anywhere near Disney or Kingdom Hearts without far more resources; wouldn’t approach until it can be done in a safer manner
• Chock watched Wonder Years; multiple mentions of Ben Savage (Corey from “Boy Meets World”)
• Sneak peeks of Berserker Armor Guts and Skull Knight when they’re further down the line
• Psycho Mantis isn’t done and ready yet–but soon
• Spike will be up for PO soon, Jet “after soon”
• Mini-Chocks is still laying in his tissue coffin; Chocks has to get around to resurrecting him
• How will the club look a year from now? Chock thinks there will be a couple items out anime-wise and also more announced, so hopefully there will be more anime guys next year in the club; hopefully lines that need saving will become viable for years to come; Chocks will be retired by the end of the year though because the club will be past 100K
• Alex thinks there will be more games, giveaways and interactions in 2019
• Make sure to find Bang and ask him to explain himself when a certain post hits 1000 Likes; Funimation was happy to see this speed; but doesn’t help F4F get the license–nothing will happen at 1000 Likes
• Alex is responsible for making sure that First 4 Figures grows in a safe and responsible manner
• Neo-Cortex is almost ready to submit
• Jet Pack Crash is being worked on
• Next Zelda pre-order will be Shiekah Slate
• Next Crash PO will most likely be Neo-Cortex
• Next Spyro PO will be Crystal Dragon
• Prices for Spike and Alphonse will be as low as F4F can get them; no Definitive Editions
• Twilight Princess Link 1/4? What’s that?
• Would collectors want Happy Mask Salesman more than Mipha? More than Twilight Princess Link 1/4? Just being second-highest in the Majora’s Mask poll isn’t necessarily enough
• “You suck, motherfuckers!”, “This is really shit!” and “Alex is a pathetic man-child!” are not examples of constructive criticism. Common human decency! Give criticism in a polite way! If you’re going to be rude: “No, thank you.”
• F4F could be really corporate and not given any replies at all or have any interaction–just because there’s an outlet to hear collectors’ desires, that doesn’t mean that they’ll always get their way; sometimes, but not always
• Alex would never change it to go behind a wall and be corporate and be First 4 Figures only
• Aniplex is asking First 4 Figures about Kill La Kill–get the poll to 850 votes so Alex can talk to them!
• All polls are useful, whether successful or not successful–more information is always useful
• In-stock payment plans can delay shipping because of moving statues between warehouses
• Need to have a conversation soon with Nintendo
• F4F gives Sega samples, doesn’t know what they do with them–an Amy Rose sample could be given to Lisa Ortiz (voice actress of Amy Rose)
• “I know many of the environmental pieces are made specifically to fit one way into one unit but have they ever considered producing one with interchangeable pieces therefore one could change the look of the piece without changing the look/position of the figure? It’s done with the heads so why not other pieces?“– “It’s possible.”
• Mario on Yoshi will be in exactly the same scale as the other Mario pieces
• No chance for Last of Us TT because of great relationship with Gaming Heads
• Sailor Moon TT will likely be for the original anime and not Sailor Moon Crystal
• Haven’t heard back from licensor about Darksiders
• No idea when card holders would be up for order or what they’d cost
• Resin Spyro is at the home stretch
• Green Stealth Snake statue has kind of started production–at pre-production stage
• Alex knows who is next in the Dark Souls SD line after Ornstein; so does Chockles
• Alex went for the pose option for Amy Rose the people voted for
• Had a long conversation about Sonic & Tails today and are working on that
• Alex and Chocks have bad habits like anyone else; “a perfect partnership is when someone accepts you despite your bad habits”
• Kiryu is definitely on “the list” to be produced
• Alex runs things by the admins all the time, but is very confident in F4F’s internal abilities at this point–doesn’t need to crowd-source much anymore
• Spike will not be around Midna price-range
• If Alex blocks an admin, he’d have to be removed from the Collector’s Club himself.
• Cowboy Bebop Soon? “Almost.”
• Nothing to say about Persona 5
• Meta Ridley will be between “Expensive” and “Super Expensive”–it’s complicated with lots of paint work
• Nier Automata: “It’s complicated.”
• My Hero Academy is complicated, but not as complicated as it was–collectors are beginning to see in real time how long these things can take

And that’s all she (okay, I) wrote for this week’s Q&A! Learn anything that gets you psyched, F4Fans?