Bandai HG Mechanics 1/550
Entry, Mecha Resolution 2003

During its military reconstruction following the devastating One Year War, the Earth Federation contracted a private company, Anaheim Electronics, to develop a series of new Gundam-model mobile suits to serve as conceptual testbeds for new and improved mobile suit technology. The third of these new prototypes to be produced by Anaheim was the RX-78GP03 Gundam, code-named “Dendrobium”.

Since the GP03 Dendrobium was designed as a defense unit for space installations capable of taking on enemy mobile armor, the Orchis component was basically a large spacegoing vehicle, equipped with enough thrusters to make it a fast interception unit. Its primary heavy armament was a large mega beam cannon, mounted on its own movable arm for aiming, and it also had two large claws which incorporated large beam sabers capable of slicing up something as large as a battleship. The Orchis also mounted an external I-field barrier generator, giving the GP03 complete 360-degree protection from enemy beam weapons fire. For versatility, it also mounted two large weapons container pods, which could carry a variety of weapons from micromissile launcher pods to battleship-sized demolition chain mines. Spare weapons containers could be loaded out ahead of time, and the Orchis could have empty pods changed out for new ones in a matter of minutes.

Construction

I built this model OOB in preparation of the event. Upon looking at the Dendrobium, its obvious that there are no natural lines to split the model into its various parts, Bandai did well to break up the parts with minimum clean up. On the whole, it was an enjoyable build.

I got my inspiration for the paint job based on Max’s Dendrobium which was featured in Gundam Weapons. I improvised some of my own pattern, well, anything is better than the original *yawn* pure white color.

Ok, perhaps mine’s not as impressive as Max’s by hey its 1/550 versus 1/144!

Additional Images