Startet	:	February 13th, 2003 / 2:10
Finished	:	March 26th, 2003 / 14:30
Base	:	Jungle Surfin' Tarzan (Disney Animated line)
Parts	:	Hands of Duke Nukem (Captain Planet Line) Light unit of Unknown.
Materials	:	Revell colors, Marabu colors, hot Glue, "UHU Kraft" glue, tape, felt, a chopstick, Das Pronto, a bottle cap, Kids Dough Clay, Clear laque, a disposable glove, acrylic color, cotton

Character & Intent

Raziel, the vain. Raziel, the proud.
Raziel, the mighty. Raziel, the fallen.

Rarely ever has there been a video game that
was as storyline-driven as the "Legacy of Kain"
series. And Raziel is character worthy of a
greece tragedy.

I won't go too far into the storyline in order not
to spoil anything , but in the "Soul Reaver" intro
it is shown that Raziel used to be a powerful
vampire. When his powers surpassed those
of his master, his "reward" was being thrown
into the abyss. (Water doesn't do this kind of
undead body good...). Nearly a millenium
passed before he was revived again...
Not as a mere vampire, but as the devourer of
souls and destined saviour of the world called
Nosgoth.

As for the figure... I had this Tarzan figure lying
around for quite some time. Then I realized that
the lanky, cartoony build of this Disney figure
beared an astounding resemblance to the
dissolved shape of Raziel. Still, there are a few
official Raziel figures out on the market and
I'm gunning for the unique with my customs.
Fortunately, I had this figure with light feature
in my box as well. Clear case, isn't it ?

Creation

This was the most difficult and work-intensive custom
I created to this date. Uncoincidentally, I was also the
one I had the most fun working on.

After getting rid of Tarzan's loincloth (Jane's can't be
a very happy woman), I added injury to insult by
dremling out his abdominal region as well as his
back and chest. At that point, the upper body fell
apart. So I was left with the base figure with the
back (or what I had left of it) still attached while
the chest, arms and head enjoyed their newfound
freedom. A fortunate incident, as it allowed me to
work on each of those parts individually.
While dremeling the jungle lord's lower jaw away,
the vibration caused his "wig" to come off. (I'm
starting to think that Jane's lucky I got rid of this
wannabe...) Anyway, the soft plastic of this part
made it easy to cut the hair into the right shape.
Propably due to a case of insane's luck, I got two
strains that were just perfect for Raziel's forehead
without even trying.

Raziel's teeth are made from a bottle
cap and attached with hot glue.

The hands come from the Duke Nukem (no
relation) figure I used for my MidKnight custom.
Note that I used hot glue not only to attach the
hands, but also to extend the fingers.

The toes are made from Das Pronto. I just sculpted
them on top of the original foot after I cut a fews toes
from the middle. (I still had to re-enforce them with
both types of glue later).

The shinwear has a Das Pronto base with Kids
Dough ornaments that were in turn covered with
another Das Pronto layer.

At that point, I had this:

~Work In Progress shot~

It should be noted that the upper body was just
stuck together instead of being glued already.

I dremeled the entire backside of this guy
away to get his lighting unit. I still can't identify
the figure, but his hands had already been a
molten mess when I got the figure at Ebay, so
I'm positive I didn't destroy anything valuable.

It was pretty difficult to fit the light into the torso.
After all, the button had to be reachable while
the "bulb" had to be in a position where it
illuminates the chest and theeth area without
sticking out in plain sight.

After I had found the right positioning for
the unit, I hot glued it into place and filled
the remaining gaps with Das Pronto. The
activator now rests between his
shoulderblades.

The upper bandages on the arms are
made of painted tape, while the lower
ones (which also cover the larger part
of the hands) are made of felt that
needed no more than mere
watercolors to look
just right.

The ruined wings that Raziel keeps on whining
about in the games were cut from the larger part
of a ripped disposable rubber glove (that's recyc-
ling for you, folks !). Their shape was directly
taken from a printout of original concept art.
(Found at the Nosgothic Realm- THE site
on all things concerning the Legacy Of Kain.
Visit now, dammit !)
Revision:
One day, while I was walking by my customs,
One of Raziel's wings just fell off without warning.
I know his wings are supposed to be ruined, but
I didn't expect them to commit suicide because of
it. Anyway, I heavy-heartedly ripped off the remain-
ning flapper and made cotton replacements. In the
end, those ended up looking better than the first version.

The coloring opened up an entire bag of problems.
First of all, the shade of blue differs in the game
and promotional artwork, so I tryed to come up with
a tone that slightly resembled both. Revell colors dropped
out of the picture quickly, so I tryed several different marabu
colors before settling with "blue middle". The next difference
between game and promotional material were the clawy fin-
gers. They're white in the artwork, but the same shade of
blue as the rest of the body in the game. I went with a
"peeled skin" look with white (a rotten yellowish shade)
tips as it seemed the most plausible thing to do.

After using some acrylic color for the hair, all that was
left was a pretty challenging detail: The scarf.

Man, that was difficult.
After I had quickly ruled felt out because it's getting
to stiff after coloring, I settled with cotton... Which
was donated by an old t-shirt. I needed about
a dozen of attempts to get the shape right.
The clan symbol was created by glueing a printout
onto tape, than cutting that out and sticking it onto
the cloth before coloring. In the end, the scarf
was glued onto the body and covered with
clear laque so the color won't come smear.

/~~Soul Reaver Accessory ~~\

Startet	:	February 16th, 2003 2:15
Finished	:	~ March 24th, 2003
Base	:	A Chopstick (Chinese Restaurant line)
Parts	:	None
Materials	:	A chopstick, Das Pronto, Revell Colors, clear laque, hot glue, Kids Dough Clay, cardboard, paper

Character & Intent

The legendary Soul Reaver blade, blessing
and curse to the lands of Nosgoth and source
of power as well as grief to Raziel. (Don't spoil it,
Creature, don't spoil it...)

The base for this accessory was a simple chopstick (not used,
of course...) which took a lot of dremeling until it had the
typical wavy shape of the single most important object in
Nosgoth.

The skull-like part of the handle was sculpted from a
mold I had ironically taken from the had of the figure.
(Material was Kids Dough Clay)
(Trust me - While the picture doesn't show it very well,
it really is skull-like). The sides were a little more difficult,
as they tended to break of or simply crumble. After several
failures, I made a printout of the correct shape (Nosgoth.net
again), glued that to some cardboard, and cut it out. Then
I covered that with hot glue and stuck it into the gap between
the two half-skulls. In the end, I covered that with some
Das Pronto.

Then, it was a simple matter of
some revell paint and clear laque.

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