Completed: 1/144 HG 00 Raiser (00 Gundam + 0 Raiser)

Previous Posts Regarding this Build:
- 1/144 HG 00 Gundam: Work in Progress – Buildup and To Do
- 1/144 HG 00 Gundam: Work in Progress – Redesigned GN Drives
- 1/144 HG 00 Raiser
- Random Musings of Works in Progress
- OH HELLS YEAH (or Blade Liger AB and 00 Raiser Revisited)

Archive Gallery Links:
- 1/144 HG 00 Gundam
- 1/144 HG 0 Raiser
- 1/144 HG 00 Raiser

Kits:
- 1/144 HG 00 Gundam
- 1/144 HG 0 Raiser
- Bandai Action Base 2 (Sparkle Green Color)

Just to note, I may end up retaking pictures of this when I am in a position to set up a better lightbox and whatnot for pics, but I wanted to go ahead and get these taken since that time might not occur for several months.

About this Build:
The origins of this build, and actually the builds of all of my HG Gundam 00 kits, is rather random. The fact is I’m at college for about 8 months out of the year, and thus am away from my spray booth and all of my modeling supplies. However, I really wanted a little figure of 00 Gundam and perhaps a few other mecha to serve as what I called “desk mascots.” I did some searching and basically was between the HCM-Pro and Robot Damashii figures. There were problems with both of them…

HCM-Pro:
- Very small (this wasn’t necessarily a con, but it’s worth mentioning).
- VERY slim selection. I was interested in getting at least a few more eventually, including enemy units, but the 00 HCM-Pro line only included the main Gundams.
- Gallery

Robot Damashii:
- Fugly.
- Gallery

In addition, both were rather expensive, hovering at around $30. However, I knew that the HG 00 was an absolutely excellent model kit, and it was only about $10. And thus I conceived the notion of doing a “rough build.” And buy this I mean buying an HG and detailing it up as much as I could with a few Gundam markers while I’m at school, and when I get home do any additional painting I might need with an airbrush and then cover the entire model in a flat coat. After I got and built the 00, it was such a fun side project that I ended up ordering the rest of the second season Celestial Being team (to date), and plan on getting a few more in the future.

So, to summarize, MOST of the work on this was done only with the following:
- Hobby Knife
- Despruing Tweezers
- Gundam Markers
- Pigma Micron Pens (for panel lines)
- Cotton Swabs (for cleanup of panel lines)

For those that are curious, my current collection of Gundam Markers is Gray, Yellow, Metallic Silver, Metallic Green, and Metallic Red.

So with all of that out of the way, let’s move on to the actual model… Unless otherwise stated, all painting was done with a Gundam Marker.

The yellow on the V-fin done by Gundam Marker. The gray faceguard are as well. The red jewel on the forehead comes clear, so the current look was achieved by painting the inner side metallic red.

The eyes were painted with the following process:

1. Paint over the entire eye area with metallic green.
2. Allow to dry.
3. Color in the remaining area with a technical pen.

The GN Condensers on the side of the head had the insides painted metallic green to achieve a nice “jewel” effect.

The GN Drives were rather tricky to paint… From a previous blog post, the process was this:

1. Put metallic green Gundam Marker in hole and press down for awhile, this lets paint flow down into the bottom where the marker can’t reach.
2. Color in the rest of the hole.
3. Repeat 1 and 2 for each hole.
4. Use marker to color entire ring. This is pretty much impossible to do perfectly so I just was messy and made sure to cover it as thoroughly as I could.
5. Sand the entire drive with sand paper evenly, so it gets rid of the excess paint on the ring and leaves an even look around the whole drive.

As mentioned in one of my previous posts, I was originally planning on redesigning and 3D printing new GN Drives for the 00 with more detail (thrusters and such), but this plan was dropped since the 0 Raiser clips into one of the holes in the GN Drives.

The GN Condensers on the arms and legs were painted in the same was as those on the head, which is that they had the inside painted with metallic green, giving them an overall nice jewel-like effect.

Close up of the backpack, with the painted-in metallic green boosters.

The targeting sensors on the GN Sword II’s gave me a massive amount of trouble… The blue and gray parts are molded as one clear piece. The trouble was originally I didn’t have any clear blue paint, and thus went with it being opaque, which really isn’t the end of the world, but I should have just been patient and went out and bought some. The main trouble however was painting them.

It is hard to see, but the grey part actually has two a very small notch all of the sides, making is seem like there SHOULD be a notch of blue in it. So I toiled quite a while at it, painting, stripping, and repainting it, but couldn’t get it perfect. Then I discovered that the notch is actually supposed to be grey as well, meaning to mask it off it is just a straight line, and my life became infinitely easier… Thus it was actually painting by airbrushing the entire thing blue and then airbrushing the gray on top of it.

The unquestionable test of a model kit’s quality is whether or not it can kneel.

…that was sarcasm. If that statement made you rage than congrats, you’re a modeler, ha.

Other minor notes are that the gray stripes on the legs are gray Gundam marker and the black filled in areas on the arms are just technical pen.

Before moving on to some action pose, I’d like to summarize the things that are NOT Gundam Marker or the other basic things I listed above:
- The targeting sensors on the GN Sword IIs (airbrush).
- The gray underside of the GN Drives (airbrush).
- All of the GN Condensers on the arms, legs, and head, as well as the eyes were given a coat of Future to add a bit of extra shine and luster to them.
- The flat coat, obviously (Mr. Top Coat – Flat).

And now the 0 Raiser:

A rather simple kit, and thus without a whole lot of work to be done. The work that was required was:
- A number of gray striped, especially on the bottom, were painted with a Gundam Marker.
- The inside of the sensor unit (orange area) was covered painted in metallic gray. By the I mean the parts on the white plastic were painted, since painting the orange piece would make it impossible to see the detail in these plastic parts.
- The white area on the blue piece sticking out of the very back of the 0 Raiser was painted with an airbrush.

My conclusion on the two kits is that I am very very pleased with the result. I made some mistakes that I’m aware of, some of which I’ve fixed at this point (missing panel lines on one of 00’s feet), and the other ones I’m aware are just mainly areas of painting that aren’t as clean as they could be, such as the aforementioned tail piece of the 0 Raiser, which was rather difficult to paint simply since there are no panel lines of any sort to guide your masking.

However, despite the errors, I’m very pleased. As I said, this was meant to be a fun distraction, not a giant time sink and intense project (I have enough of those already), and it served its purpose very well. Now for a bit of 00 Raiser action…

0 Raiser, Docking Mode!!!

And that concludes the 00 Gundam, 0 Raiser, and 00 Raiser. Cherudim will be up next since it’s the only other Gundam that is currently also top coated and completed, but we’ll see where I go from there.