Gunpla: Raziel, my 2015 GBWC entry

The Gunpla I built and submitted to the 2015 Gundam Builders World Cup is a modified FG Rasiel (Furoku Grade). Earlier this year I found the unassembled Rasiel kit in my parents' basement, forgotten and discarded, and I decided to take it with me back to Korea to work on. I thought that with enough time and effort I could convert Rasiel from a near-static model to a custom Gunpla with decent articulation. "Enough" time and effort ended up equaling six months worth; from February to August I worked on Rasiel sporadically, pausing when it became too frustrating, even taking breaks to build two other Gunpla. However, just in time for the GBWC I completed what I consider to be my most involved Gunpla project yet.

The first thing I did was put together the unmodified Rasiel to get a feel for the kit. Rasiel is an extremely simple Gunpla: all of its pieces come on a single runner. It can't bend it's limbs at the knees or elbows, nor can it rotate it's torso, head, hands, feet... It's basically an unpainted white block of plastic when built straight out of the box. To compensate I bought an HG Nadleeh, a relatively cheap model with many structural similarities to Rasiel, and butchered it for joints and other bits. I used a mini hobby saw to hack Rasiel and Nadleeh apart, and through mind-numbing and time consuming trial and error I was able to fit Rasiel with enough moving pieces from Nadleeh to give the former Gunpla a significant increase in articulation. Getting Nadleeh's parts to fit required every tool at my disposal: sanding files, hobby knives, quick drying putty, liquid cement, etc. One of my favorite new tools I acquired while working on Rasiel is a miniature pin vice. With it I was able to drill holes into Rasiel that I could insert plastic tubing into, creating sturdy new pegs for joining pieces together.

After three months of work I completed Rasiel's main body, allowing me to move onto constructing weapons and accessories. It wasn't enough that Rasiel was now mobile; I wanted to personalize it. In my head I had several ideas regarding what sort of Gundam I wanted Rasiel to be, and eventually I decided to make it an independent fast-attack mobile suit. Ripping pieces from four different parts sets and two other Gundam kits, I stuck bits together with blue tack for hours, trying dozens of combinations until I found something I liked, at which point I would permanently glue what I had created using liquid cement. I wanted to make Rasiel functional and stylish: for long distance combat I came up with a rail gun that works in tandem with the radome behind Rasiel's head (the halo motif of the radome acts as a callback to the religious origin of Rasiel's name). I made a sword-halberd hybrid for melee use, which is arguably not the most practical weapon but looks cool and gives Rasiel an imposing silhouette. The wings were tricky, as I wanted to make them slightly ornate but still believable while matching the aesthetic of Rasiel's body.

Painting Rasiel presented a new challenge, as this was the first Gunpla I painted head to toe. I started by spraying every piece with primer, after which I painted individual pieces with either white, gray or black spray paint. I then switched to painting by hand, giving Rasiel a personalized color scheme based on the colors found on US Air Force jets. When I was satisfied with the way it looked, I sprayed Rasiel with gloss coat to give the model a slick surface so that I could go back and detail it with black ink and apply water-slide decals. Finally, I sprayed Rasiel with a matte top coat to seal everything in before assembling all of the pieces together.

I finished Rasiel on August 19th, the last day submissions could be delivered to the Gunpla Expo in Seoul for the GBWC. To signify that this Rasiel Gunpla is my own original custom I titled it "Raziel", after the Hebrew Archangel of the same name. I retrieved Raziel on the 26th and spent a few days tidying it up, applying paint where it had chipped and tightening a few joints, and now that I've had time to shoot some decent photos, I'm ready to share my Gunpla on my blog. I didn't bring any medals home minus a participatory badge, but I'm not shy to admit I'm proud of my work.

And truthfully, I'm glad it's all over! What an exhausting project this has been. Immensely satisfying, but exhausting. I think I'll be taking a short break from Gunpla before starting a new model.

Gunpla Expo and Gunpla Builders World Cup 2015, Seoul: Part III

All right, enough beating around the bush: in my third and final post regarding this year's Gunpla Expo, I'll share the results of the 2015 Gundam Builders World Cup competition in South Korea. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the announcements were made at the Expo on Sunday, August 23rd, and I and a crowd of people had gathered to see the winners firsthand. Meijin Kawaguchi, the official master of Gunpla, was present to do the judging and award trophies in four categories:

Junior Course A (ages 0 ~ 10)

Junior Course B (ages 11 ~ 14)

Open Course A (ages 15 ~ 20)

Open Course B (ages 21 and up)

A third, second and first place winner was chosen for each category, totaling 12 individual winners. Two overall champions were also named, one from the Junior Division and the other from the Open. Those two will go on to represent Korea in the international round of the GBWC later this year.

Truth be told, while some of the Meijin’s picks made sense to me many others I didn’t expect, in particular his choice of Open Division champion. Have a look at the winners and you can see for yourself if you agree or disagree!

Gunpla Expo and Gunpla Builders World Cup 2015, Seoul: Part II

I've waited so long for the Gunpla Expo to roll into town that it feels anticlimactic to visit only once and be done with it. In order to fully enjoy all that the Expo has to offer I've gone three times now, with plans for a fourth trip later this week.

My first visit was on the 19th, so that I could drop off my submission for the 2015 GBWC. The Expo hadn't technically opened to the public yet, and as a result there wasn't much to see aside from the other GBWC entries. I went again on Sunday the 23rd to watch the official master of Gunpla, Meijin Kawaguchi, announce the winners of the GBWC (more on that later), as well as experience the Expo in full swing. However, two complications occurred on Sunday that forced me to consider returning to the Expo the following day: to my embarrassment I'd left my camera's battery in it's charger back at my home, meaning I had only the subpar camera built into my phone available to me (dejavu!), and the crowds on Sunday were so intense that it was impossible to enjoy any of the Expo's activities without fighting my way through throngs of people or waiting in dreadfully long lines.

Thus today after work I made a third trip to the Gunpla Expo, arriving an hour before closing time, in hopes that it would be a much more pleasant experience. Maybe I'm just looking for excuses to go to the Expo as many times as possible before it packs up and I have to wait a year for the next one, but in my defense when I arrived at the Expo this evening there was a significant decrease in the number of people in attendance. This allowed me to leisurely browse the display cases featuring the latest Gunpla fresh from Japan, toy around with several of the activities, and best of all I was able to complete the stamp rally without having to stand in any lines.

The stamp rally is a mini-game of sorts designed to encourage attendees to check out everything the Expo has to offer. Located throughout the convention hall are 15 stations, each featuring a task that should be completed in order to earn a stamp. Tasks include voting for a Gunpla in the GBWC, taking a survey, making a blog post about the Expo and showing your post to staff (easy!), buying something (...), etc. Once all 15 stamps have been obtained the attendee has a chance to draw a ticket from the lottery box, and on that ticket is written a prize. I got the 15 stamps with barely any hassle but I'll collect my prize later this week, when I make my fourth trip to the Expo to retrieve my Gunpla submission.

It's a silly thing, but going back and forth to the Expo as often as I like makes me appreciate that I'm an adult. For example, I saw my Gunpla-loving 5th grade student at the Expo on Sunday. He had come with his dad, and for all I know this was his one chance to attend. Being a child, his desires have to first be approved by his parents, and even then what he wants may not be deemed what's best for him. Meanwhile, I can do whatever I want, and if that means going to the Gunpla Expo four times in a week than no one gets to stop me!

On the flip side, his dad bought him a Perfect Grade Gundam 00 Raiser plus a Gunpla Expo-exclusive base stand, so he may in fact have the upper hand after all.

Well... at least I got my photos!

Gunpla Expo and Gunpla Builders World Cup 2015, Seoul: Part I

Today was the first day of the fall semester, which means my summer has tragically come to an end. I made the most of my time off from teaching by traveling across the Korean peninsula to several major cities and even hopping over the ocean to a nearby Japanese island for a bit of sushi and sake. I'll write up proper posts for those adventures in the future, but first I'd like to write about a more time-sensitive matter: the 2015 S. Korean Gunpla Expo, which is of as this writing currently taking place at the Coex shopping mall in the southern half of Seoul. The Gunpla Expo is scheduled to last from August 20th to the 26th and is also host to the Korean entrants in the 2015 Gunpla Builders World Cup, so for Gundam and Gunpla fans living in Korea it's obviously a must-attend event.

For the last six months or so I've been working on my submission for this year's GBWC, and in the past few weeks I've dedicated almost every minute of my free time to completing it. I was adding finishing details to my Gunpla up until the last possible moment, and it was already after 7pm on the 19th when I jogged into convention hall D1 on the 3rd floor of the Coex to drop off my Gunpla, two hours before the 9pm deadline for all entries. Sitting outside the hall in a small queue were four or five Gundam fans, patiently waiting for the Expo to open to the public on the following day. Some were reclining on mats and tapping on their phones, others slurped noodles out of Styrofoam cups. I admired their resolve. In my case, because I was a contestant in the GBWC I was given a large sticker stating as much which allowed me inside. I had to follow a roped-off walkway to the sign-in tables, but all around me I saw staff scurrying about, setting up kiosks and booths and preparing for the Expo. I apparently wasn't the only one racing to finish.

Fortunately for me, the staff working the sign-in tables spoke enough English for me to register without a hitch. After going through the necessary paperwork I was given a commemorative pin and coupon for Gunpla then directed to a nearby cluster of tables where builders could assemble their models before taking them to the exhibition area. I found a seat and pulled my Gunpla out of its box so I could adjust and pose it. Just in case I had brought some tools along to do any detailing or cleaning I might have missed, but interestingly I saw builders who were sitting at tables with incomplete out-of-box models, still snapping them together and painting them with Gundam Markers. On the opposite end of the builder spectrum I saw hobbyists lugging in massive dioramas that must have taken months, possibly a whole year to complete. I wasn't intimidated: I had known there would be such contestants, but I was satisfied enough in my own work to be able to proudly put it on display.

I had spent so much time working on my Gunpla that it was a little difficult to part with. Eventually I was ready to let go, and it currently rests on a shelf in a display case for all convention-goers to see. It was after stepping away from my work I realized I was in an enviable position for anyone who enjoys photographing Gunpla. Typically at these contests the Gundam models are behind thick reflective glass for their protection, which has the drawback of making it difficult to photograph them. However there I was in the relatively uncrowded Gunpla Expo, countless custom Gunpla surrounding me, and all of the glass removed from the display cases so builders could easily install their projects. As a Gunpla photographer enthusiast, I can't adequately express how exciting this opportunity was for me.

So, without further ado, allow me to present the amazing works submitted by the very talented builders of South Korea to this year's GBWC. I'll be making a future post about the expo later on now that it's open, and once I retrieve my model I'll do a proper photo shoot with it and share those photos here. In the meantime, please enjoy!