#gaplant

[purpllehazel]

Fucking Gaplants you

[tukathewolf]

Got my hands on one of my favorite suits from Zeta Gundam. Love how cool the Gaplant is.

[gundamfight]

[gundamfight]

[gremoria411]

The MAK-005S Gaplant Kai was a mobile armour used by the Earth Branch of the AEUG, Karaba, during the latter half of the Gryps Conflict and throughout the subsequent Neo Zeon War. Unlike its predecessor, the ORX-005 Gaplant, it was a non-transformable suit conceived as an atmospheric interceptor - an excellent means to challenge invading Axis forces. However, Karaba already possessed the excellent Zeta Plus series with which to establish aerial superiority, and as such only 20 units were produced. These twenty units would be deployed in rapid strike operations against (formerly) spaceborne Axis forces entering the atmosphere.

The regular Gaplant is one of those titans suits that I just see everywhere. We know that a lot of old Titans Stock was sold off by the Earth Federation (though to who exactly is a little unclear), and a transformable suit capable of long periods of atmospheric flight was always going to be a hot item. It makes sense that it’d have some further development with the fall of the Titans - though materials associated with them are politically inconvenient to Earth Federation itself, Karaba really isn’t in a position to be picky. The Gaplant’s just rather nice and straightforward. I will call out that I absolutely adore the wing binders, and just wing binders in general; they’re just a design feature I really like - a wing, a thruster, a gun all-in-one. It’s just a great economy of design and yet so stylish.

Armament-wise, the Gaplant Kai eschews the integrated beam rifles and beam sabers of the original Gaplant and replaces them with weaponry more suited to a mobile armour, namely Vulcan Cannons in the wings and some optional 12-tube missile launchers near the rear of the craft (not shown in the above picture). It also has some Diffuse Beam Cannons built into the wings. If it wasn’t for the fact that they can also function as regular Beam Cannons, I’d find fitting your interceptor with what are essentially beam shotguns an extremely ballsy move.

In case it isn’t obvious, I do very much like the Gaplant Kai conceptually - taking a Titans design and pressing it into Karaba’s service in the Neo Zeon War is just kinda rad, recognising the enemy was on to something and deploying it in the next war out of desperation. I like the Gaplant, so a variant on its design emphasising the mobile armour element is just lovely and I appreciate how much more specialised it feels - no longer a test unit, it’s Aerodynamic and suited to quick strikes. I’m of two minds about the colour scheme. One one hand, it’d be difficult to pick out against the clouds, so I can visualise it coming out of nowhere and attacking a surprised enemy. On the other, it’s just a little bit plain.

[reneelovesrobots]

Finished the Gaplant Hrairoo! It's, uh, a bit less than the sum of its parts.

Looks good but almost immediately some of the problems begin to pop up. That ginormous gun is too big for the Gaplant's big 'ol gorilla arms to hold naturally. And those arms are pretty restrictive- you can get quite a bit out of the legs but between the arm design, the shields, and the shoulder pads this variant has the arms are fairly limited.

You can disassemble the gun down to a little beam spray gun (I think?) but it's a little comical versus the suits bulk lol

And your melee option is this: a solid hunk of navy blue plastic with no individual hilt piece and no suit storage. You do get two of 'em but... yeah. I am Not A Fan (and these are on the runners in the pic because I threw them out actually).

Fortunately, you don't need to use the hands to hold the gun!

The "tail" on the buttplate can hold the gun (a little loosely but it works pretty well). And, as seen here, you can pop it out and mount it on the shoulders. It looks pretty neat!

Here's our other big mounting option for The Gun inside the shoulder. With bonus shield-mounted beam cannons held in the hands for firing! I really do love how much you can do with this thing.

Unfortunately, we come to the other major problem here. The stand, or to be more specific the way it connects to the MS. The entire weight of the machine is held in place by a single polycap. It isn't up to the task. Balance the weight even slightly wrong and the whole machine swivels at the mounting.

Anyway, MA mode!

I posted a ways back about how much I like the torso's transformation and that very much remains true. There's essentially no replace parts nonsense with this, just a stowed v-fin part and two gray bits to hold the gun in place and then mount on the stand. You do need to disassemble it, remove some bits, and reassemble, but like it's an HG that doesn't bug me. Unfortunately one of the arms on my copy has a very loose connection in this mode but it's just the one so I think that's a QC error (and an easy fix tbh).

In the end, this is a kit with a lot of neat ideas but the bits between them are kind of subpar. If you're able and willing to put in the work it'll shine assuming you can fix that polycap connection (or that I messed that up somehow) but it really does need that extra touch.

I'll probably go back and give it some love eventually (and do the neat decals), but for now the process of trying to get good aerial poses and failing miserably frustrated me enough that he's gonna sit on my shelf in MA mode for a while.

[reneelovesrobots]

Finished the Gaplant Hrairoo! It's, uh, a bit less than the sum of its parts.

Looks good but almost immediately some of the problems begin to pop up. That ginormous gun is too big for the Gaplant's big 'ol gorilla arms to hold naturally. And those arms are pretty restrictive- you can get quite a bit out of the legs but between the arm design, the shields, and the shoulder pads this variant has the arms are fairly limited.

You can disassemble the gun down to a little beam spray gun (I think?) but it's a little comical versus the suits bulk lol

And your melee option is this: a solid hunk of navy blue plastic with no individual hilt piece and no suit storage. You do get two of 'em but... yeah. I am Not A Fan (and these are on the runners in the pic because I threw them out actually).

Fortunately, you don't need to use the hands to hold the gun!

The "tail" on the buttplate can hold the gun (a little loosely but it works pretty well). And, as seen here, you can pop it out and mount it on the shoulders. It looks pretty neat!

Here's our other big mounting option for The Gun inside the shoulder. With bonus shield-mounted beam cannons held in the hands for firing! I really do love how much you can do with this thing.

Unfortunately, we come to the other major problem here. The stand, or to be more specific the way it connects to the MS. The entire weight of the machine is held in place by a single polycap. It isn't up to the task. Balance the weight even slightly wrong and the whole machine swivels at the mounting.

Anyway, MA mode!

I posted a ways back about how much I like the torso's transformation and that very much remains true. There's essentially no replace parts nonsense with this, just a stowed v-fin part and two gray bits to hold the gun in place and then mount on the stand. You do need to disassemble it, remove some bits, and reassemble, but like it's an HG that doesn't bug me. Unfortunately one of the arms on my copy has a very loose connection in this mode but it's just the one so I think that's a QC error (and an easy fix tbh).

In the end, this is a kit with a lot of neat ideas but the bits between them are kind of subpar. If you're able and willing to put in the work it'll shine assuming you can fix that polycap connection (or that I messed that up somehow) but it really does need that extra touch.

I'll probably go back and give it some love eventually (and do the neat decals), but for now the process of trying to get good aerial poses and failing miserably frustrated me enough that he's gonna sit on my shelf in MA mode for a while.

[reneelovesrobots]

Finished the Gaplant Hrairoo! It's, uh, a bit less than the sum of its parts.

Looks good but almost immediately some of the problems begin to pop up. That ginormous gun is too big for the Gaplant's big 'ol gorilla arms to hold naturally. And those arms are pretty restrictive- you can get quite a bit out of the legs but between the arm design, the shields, and the shoulder pads this variant has the arms are fairly limited.

You can disassemble the gun down to a little beam spray gun (I think?) but it's a little comical versus the suits bulk lol

And your melee option is this: a solid hunk of navy blue plastic with no individual hilt piece and no suit storage. You do get two of 'em but... yeah. I am Not A Fan (and these are on the runners in the pic because I threw them out actually).

Fortunately, you don't need to use the hands to hold the gun!

The "tail" on the buttplate can hold the gun (a little loosely but it works pretty well). And, as seen here, you can pop it out and mount it on the shoulders. It looks pretty neat!

Here's our other big mounting option for The Gun inside the shoulder. With bonus shield-mounted beam cannons held in the hands for firing! I really do love how much you can do with this thing.

Unfortunately, we come to the other major problem here. The stand, or to be more specific the way it connects to the MS. The entire weight of the machine is held in place by a single polycap. It isn't up to the task. Balance the weight even slightly wrong and the whole machine swivels at the mounting.

Anyway, MA mode!

I posted a ways back about how much I like the torso's transformation and that very much remains true. There's essentially no replace parts nonsense with this, just a stowed v-fin part and two gray bits to hold the gun in place and then mount on the stand. You do need to disassemble it, remove some bits, and reassemble, but like it's an HG that doesn't bug me. Unfortunately one of the arms on my copy has a very loose connection in this mode but it's just the one so I think that's a QC error (and an easy fix tbh).

In the end, this is a kit with a lot of neat ideas but the bits between them are kind of subpar. If you're able and willing to put in the work it'll shine assuming you can fix that polycap connection (or that I messed that up somehow) but it really does need that extra touch.

I'll probably go back and give it some love eventually (and do the neat decals), but for now the process of trying to get good aerial poses and failing miserably frustrated me enough that he's gonna sit on my shelf in MA mode for a while.