Dendrobium part 1

Hey guys! Been a while since my last post as I was overseas and blogspot was blocked lawl (china rofl) So as a way to make up for my extended absence I'll start off with something big. Thanks too everyone who pitched in and got me this wonderful gunpla for my 21st and after many months of contemplation I've started putting it together and it's quite overwhelming.

For those you didn't get a good look at it during the present opening or for those who want a size comparison, I am assisted by Char's ZakuII 2.0 and the dendrobium box dwarfs the red comet!

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A quick look of the contents reveals the construction manual and my first time encountering one which is made from really thick and super glossy paper

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Shiny!

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Zaku II sneaking a peak into the box and dun dun dun the runners are divided into 2 compartments

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If you put the 2 boxes next to each other with A on the left they for a profile image of the kit

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Kudos for Bandai here. Runners are arranged in such a way that when building you start from box A and lift out the runners as you go through the steps without having to randomly dig through a gigantic mess

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Just showing off the shear size of some of the pieces and these arent even near the largest!

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Contents of box A

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and B

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Most bags contain 2 runners with some being multiple copies while some are just placed together for convenience

Oh and here's the runners for the GPO3 codenamed "Stamen" while the bigass mobile armor is codenamed "Orchis" and combined we get...the Dendrobium.
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A little trivia for those interested the Gundam's from the 0083 series are named after flowers like the GPO2 FB "Zephyranthes" and the GPO2A "Physalis" N.b. not syphilis.

Here are the runners for the GPO3 all laid out and yeah its a tiny kit but remember it is in 1/144 scale

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I wont be doing a proper WIP but I'll try to document the more interesting parts as I go along so bare with me and try to stick till the end!

Found in box A are 5 types of screws and 2 springs

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Bandai shuns from using screws with their newest products but with the dendrobium it's clearly a must with really heavy moving parts heavy duty joints are required

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First off is the S runner x2 and as you can see 1 entire runner + some screws and polycaps are needed just to build the internals of appendage which later on we'll see that it connects to the primary weapon and defense equipment of this mobile armor

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Some more comparison photos and as you may notice I'm working on a cutting mat which has 1cm squares on it for easy size estimations

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More randoms

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Guest featuring my left hand!

Incase of emergency you may throw this block of plastic for massive damage!

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2 "appendages" one for each side and is it jsut me or do they look like a pair of handguns? DUAL WIELDING !!!

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PEW PEW

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Moving on these 2 enormous parts make up the core of the armor

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and for something so big the molding is very good with lots of detailing

I forgot to mention earlier but the kit also comes with 3 pieces of metal plating which are used to secure multiple sections of the core together as well as adding strength and relieving stress off the plastic.

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the stuff is thick!

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And fits like so

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Here we have a part of the hull

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Kinda reminds me of a space shuttle

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...oh what? Your telling me its a space ship?

No gunpla kit is complete without a hip joint and presenting the heavy duty version

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construction is slow with trimming and carving parts so atm it just looks like some space debris

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The other 2 pieces of metal as used for the bow of the armor

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Because its gotta support this as well

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8 Screws of 2 different sizes are used to secure this half to the core

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And here's a shitty picture of it supporting itself on its handgun wannabe appendages

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It would be illogical of Bandai not to include a stand for this as it does not have legs wheels or a come ontop of a cushion lawl
Base

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and the support

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TAH DAH ready for some massive head trauma?

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I was worried for my poor desk as it looked like it was gonna cave under the all that weight but fear not all is well

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Thats all for now oh and did I mention this will be picture intensive?