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.