U-20 COURSE

Eternal Blossom: The Rise of Gundam Spirits

Mark Alexander Ierwanto

My work talks about the revival of the Rising Freedom Gundam destroyed in Seed Freedom movie. As a young generation of Gundam fans, I really like the cool design of it. Therefore, I really want Rising Freedom to return alive again in the next story. My work depicts Rising Freedom Gundam awakening and rising to the sky in action pose accompanied by the support of other Gundam Spirits from various universes, both universal century and alternative universe to illustrate the unity of the legendary and eternal spirit of Gundam.

The Concept & Philosophy are to collaborate the Spirit of Gunplas with the Japanese cultural tradition of ikebana, how to arrange Gunplas in harmony and show the beauty of its soul. The idea is to make a completely different kit as a unity, where the Gundam and the entire diorama are made of Gunplas too. I use a total of 9 Gunplas to symbolize the highest integrity and spirit to achieve the dream in the future, and 8 Gunplas for the diorama to symbolize the infinity spirit of Gundams from various Universes and to portray the eternal passion of fans around the world that share the same dream and energy.

I gave a detailed touch to the HG Rising Freedom, but still maintained the Japanese gunpla characteristic style, which is clean, simple modern looking. I did some reshaping to make the proportions more pleasing to the eye and scribed panel line details to give a realistic touch. The challenge with this kit was that there were no decals available, therefore I used a combination of 3 other types of Bandai Gundam Decals for the Decal-bash and combined them on the Rising Freedom.

I deliberately used the Entry Grade RX78 kit in a prominent center position as one of the 8 gunplas that I used for the diorama, this is to encourage novice gunpla fans to have the courage to take part and enliven this competition in the future. Hopefully, in the future, many people will like and pursue this hobby together to grow and develop it as a positive activity.