1/550 HG Mechanics GP03D Dendrobium

Dendrobium anyone? Yeah, finally I managed to get my first Dendrobium but certainly this is not the real one.

What I mean with that is because this one is pretty small in size, just slightly bigger than 1/18 die cast model car, certainly much easier to build and the price is ultimately much cheaper than the one that cost 28,000 yen (about SGD 417.00 before shipment charges) at 1/144 scale.

This is the review for 1/550 HG Mechanics GP03D Dendrobium.

At 1,500 yen (about SGD 23.00 before adding the shipment charges) this is certainly a fun kit to work with but unlike other HGUC kit, surely you need to spend some time on simple painting job and maybe additional panel lining job before you could finally be happy with it... otherwise it will be plain white and not many would be pleased with that - then again, this is not HGUC kit and thus there is no such label on the box - therefore that is why you need to do some painting.

If everything is prepainted or at least some stickers is supplied to replace those missing colors, then and only then Bandai will give that HGUC label on this kit. As it is... this is HG Mechanics.


The box...




All the runners.... no polycaps!!!




On this photo below is the mini 1/550 scale unpainted GP03S Gundam and Gerbera Tetra.




This is the manual... simple 1 piece...





The first 2 hours I spent working on the coloring or painting... using some old fashion tools - the regular permanent water proof marker pen, pencils and some Korean pen, basically it's like marker pen also...

I don't really like doing this coloring/painting works... it makes my hands dirty... I hate it... but no choice on this one... I have to get dirty...





Bandai give this tooth-pick kind of beam saber for the Dendrobium... originally all in white and thus you need to some coloring/painting work on it as well...




That's the 1/550 scale GP03S Gundam after top coat treatment... I'm so grateful that the GP03S don't have plenty of colors on it... so the blue and red marker pen is good enough...




And for this Gebera Tetra guy... I just use red entirely for the body and black for the rifle and those thing at the back. After marker pen, I do use top coat to protect the color and to prevent my hand to get dirty again next time when touching them...




This is the missile pod part for the Dendrobium....




By looking at the photo below... I think you can guess what item did I use for the coloring....





Certainly not the best... I am willingly admit that but for sure, that's the best I could do with my limited tools and time, but for some of you who willing to make it better by using proper paint and technique, I believe you can possibly do better than me... good luck with it, I'm not jealous at all... I hate to make my hands and fingers dirty and to go thru all those hardship... I just want easy life.





As for the Dendrobium, it is very easy to work with.... depending on your skills and speed you can easily finish it within 1 hour or maximum 2 hours though some will take longer as they want to do extra finishing work.

I my self spent 2 hours for the assembly part.... took me a lot of time clearing all those cutting marks using the hobby knife....

Slowly but surely, this is it now...




The panel lining work is another tiring process... most of the times... I rather skip it, I guess you've seen some of my previous GunPla works, surely you would know by now that I basically the "straight out of the box assembly" type of guy... but for this time only, I decided to put in some "extra effort" and do as much as possible - though I still skip on certain parts in which you can see from the photos below...







Evidently, I spent some additional 2 hours for the panel lining and putting some decals and stickers on this Dendrobium to enhanced the cosmetic looks - at least to my liking....






Let's look around the body of this Dendrobium...





















Bandai give some extra parts so that you can swap it later to make it look "real"






Now the highlight of this kit is the openable missile pod... unfortunately this is as much as you can get... I personally would love it if Bandai can at least give1 or 2 missile pod that can be taken out from there but you know... at 1,500 yen Bandai said; "that is not possible at all..."








And then another highlight... the moveable arms - basically on this part, Bandai also gave an extra parts so you can swap it accordingly....






And here where the big beam saber suppose to be...





You have to replace the mini beam saber handle with the one that you paint earlier (the tooth-pick beam saber hahahahaha)







In case you want to know about the attachment of GP03S Gundam inside the Dendrobium... this is it;




Just put him there.... nice and easy... he wont fall down, don't worry...




Size comparison between 1/144 HG RX-78-2 Gundam and those 1/550 mini figures...






And this is how big (or small) is the 1/550 scale Dendrobium if compared to the 1/144 HG RX-78-2 Gundam





Overall, for 1,500 yen one must control their expectation level, it is natural to hope for more features and gimmick but most of the times one wont get it. Unless if you can afford the 28,000 yen 1/144 HGUC Dendrobium, I guess this is surely one of the cheapest that you can get though you can also consider the SD/BB Gundam kit for GP03D.

I have no complain at all on this item though I do have 1 or 2 wish list on this kit. Everything is as what I expected after reading the brief information provided by HLJ about this item before I proceed to purchase it... so I guess it's a fair deal.

If you interested you can try to get this from your local retailers or you can also order it from any online hobby/toy shop.

Here is the link of the product page from HLJ; 1/550 GP03 Dendrobium

Next project for Stardust Memory should be the HGUC 1/144 GP01, GP02 and GP03 though I would consider the Zaku F2 as well...