First 4 Figures has become known among collectors by doing official statues of Nintendo characters. Today, the company expanded and, though still focused on videogames figures, they no longer work solely with Sega and Nintendo but also Konami, Namco, Capcom among others. In this meantime the quality of their production increased tenfold while the prices continue among the best in the market. We’ll interview Alex Davis, owner of F4F, to try to discover the secret behind such transformations.
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1 – First I want to thank you for taking a little of your time to answer these questions and begin the interview trying to give a dimension of First 4 Figures today. Could you tell us with how many brands do you work today and how many franchises? Are there more coming on the way? If so, could you reveal who they are?
Alex Davis (AD): 6 licensors that are public which amount to over 18 franchises. Behind the scenes, we’ve inked deals with a further 3-4 with more planned in the future.
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| Some of F4F franchises. |
2 – How the change of a Nintendo only manufacturer to a broad line of licenses happened? Did you encounter some resistance of Nintendo while choosing to broad your market options?
(AD): We’re going into years 10-12 with Nintendo so are really happy with our partnership with them. They are really awesome to work with! We actually started with SEGA back in 2009 so for many years have made a lot of Sonic the Hedgehog items too. In terms of broadening our market options, it’s not really something that is discussed directly with licensors.
A funny story: my point of contact at Nintendo a few years ago moved across to Capcom - who then contacted me when they there to suggest that we start off with some Megaman statues. Couldn’t resist that opportunity!
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3 – Up until now, what figure is your bestseller? Which one sold out faster?
(AD): Top 3 are Varia Suit (Metroid), Artorias (Dark Souls) and Amaterasu (Okami). The way we do preorders now has the edition size set to 2 weeks i.e. time limited (not quantity limited) so there is no comparison on which one sold faster.
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| Best-sellers. |
4 – It’s noticeably from the early days to now the quick evolution of the sculpt quality of your figures. There's an undeniable difference from the first Link (from The Legend of Zelda) productions to, say, the new Dark Souls character. What happened? Did you reshape your team of sculptors or are working with outsourced professionals, or the new licenses allow to more detailed and creative sculpting, after all, what’s the trick?
(AD): No trick - just years of experience. Honing the craft. :)
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| Evolution on sculpting. |
5 – How can you manage to keep the prices relatively small and don’t enter that inflating bubble of prices other companies are practicing? Your prices are on the rise too but at a slower rate. What do you do to keep the costs down? And by the way in which country are your statues manufactured?
(AD): The biggest reason is because we are a small company - we can keep the overheads lower which is translated to a cheaper price point. We use all the same factories as all the other statue manufacturers so the key is running a small, yet highly efficient team.
6 – How do you decide who is the next character to be launched?
(AD): Internally discussions, community engagement and in depth research.
7 – I believe First 4 community is a very sound one. Do you receive a lot of input from your fans? If so, do you consider their comments when choosing the next character to be done or altering a work in progress?
(AD): We love the First 4 Figures Community. They are incredibly passionate and we are very open to feedback. We will always try our best to improve where we can. We actually run a weekly poll for possible future character choices so allow for the F4F community engage in helping shape our character selection.
8 – Which figure(s) you produced you are more proud of?
(AD): Dredd vs Death for me is one of the most rewarding items I’ve ever made. It was so complicated back when I made it 8 years ago - I really learnt a lot from that experience. In terms of which one made me the most proud from an Aesthetics point of view? Well let’s just say the best is yet to come! Lots of goodies coming up! :)
9 – Which character was the hardest to sell so far?
(AD): My lips are sealed! :)
10 – How is the flux of the work on a character? Which stages a product should pass until it arrives at the hands of the consumers? What is the hardest part of the process and what is more fun?
(AD): 2D concept -> 3D sculpt -> 3D print -> prototype casting -> prototype painting -> factory counter sample -> preproduction samples -> mass production -> shipping to customers. Each stage needs to go through approval stages. The 3D sculpt and painting stages are the hardest and funnest stages as that’s where the creative process is really concentrated.
11 – Every company nowadays seems to become partner of Sideshow Collectibles on the distribution of their products. F4F is no exception as I saw the StarFox Airwing for sale there. What the benefits of that partnership and who approached who to close this deal? Plus, why there’s only two F4F figures for sale on Sideshow’s site (Airwing and Samus Varia Suit)?
(AD): This is actually a deal done through our US distributor, not through us directly so can’t comment directly.
12 – How old is First 4 Figures and how many employees do you have right now? Tell us a bit of your company’s story. Why the name in the first place?
(AD): Started in 2003. Right now have 5 guys in our HK office and 6 guys in our China team. The company was originally set up to be a distributor of anime items from China into the UK which is why the name is a bit more B2B [Business to Business] facing.
13 – What’s the 10 best games of all-time?
(AD): Super Mario Bros, The Legend of Zelda, Soul Calibur, Tekken, Dark Souls, Metroid, Okami, Megaman, Sonic the Hedgehog and PAC-Man. See what I did there.. ;)
14 – Do you still do hand sculpt or everything now is sculpted through 3D software? If you do hand sculpt, when and why?
(AD): 3D sculpting. Technology has got to the point where the pros of 3D sculpting far outweighs the cons compared to traditional clay sculpting.
15 – In what conventions do you attend annually, so fans can stay tuned to cross paths with you?
(AD): Not too many right now, mainly B2B trade shows but we plan to do conventions in the future.
16 – What advices would you give to a person who wants to become a professional sculptor of collectible figures?
(AD): Study anatomy, anatomy and more anatomy.
17 – What would astonish you the most: to see an alien or to see a ghost?
(AD): A ghost. The possibility of seeing an alien is infinitely higher than seeing a ghost. :)
18 – Please, leave a phrase, or a quote or a bombastic news to your fans around the globe.
(AD): “If at first you don’t succeed, turn to the F4F community for inspiration.” :)
Thank you very much for your time and to answer this interview. I’m sure fans we’ll be delighted with the info you shared here. And for this I can only be very grateful.
(AD): My pleasure!
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