HGUC 1/144 Earth Federation Army Special Forces Mass Production Mobile Suits RGM-79 "GM" and RX-77D "Guncannon Mass-Production Type" [White Dingo Team Custom]
The classic HGUC GM is back! This is the third time I've build this exact kit, although this time it's part of an exclusive recolour paired kit with the HGUC Guncannon Mass-Production. Both of these are pretty old kits, heavily reliant on polycaps and lacking features such as clear beam effects (or for the original design of the Guncannon Mass-Production, even lacking a clear visor).
The White Dingo team was part of the limited resource Earth-based Mobile Suit Teams operating towards the end of the One Year War, alongside the more well known 08th and 3rd MS Teams deployed in South Asia. The White Dingo team were deployed as part of the effort to recapture Australia from Zeonic occupation, as shown in the video game "Mobile Suit Gundam Side Story 0079: Rise From The Ashes".
In terms of of the build, there's no major differences between the standard builds or this recolour. They both utilise the standard instructions, repackaged with an extra sheet for the different weapon options and altered . The Guncannon Mass-Production does include a full set of clear parts, mostly just to allow for a clear visor rather than the opaque one that requires painting.
These are already recoloured to align with the basic White Dingo colour scheme (although in other artwork it looks like the armour is mostly white rather than a light lavender blue). Despite being older kits there isn't too much that needs to be repainted, aside for some areas of grey. I also added a lot of yellow detailing, including the heat retardant coating for the various thrusters and booster nozzles.
On top of this, I added my usual metallic weathering, and a decent amount of sponge chipping to help bring everything together. I also added a ton of sand coloured and rust coloured pingment powder to the legs and feet, to help give the kits the impression they'd actually been deployed out in the Australian outback, and I think the warmer tones used for the weathering contrast nicely with the cool colours of the base kit.
There's a decent collection of stickers included with this set with the White Dingo Team logo, and a collection of EFF logos and numbers. I supplemented these with a few of my other sticker decal spares to help the kits look nicely detailed.
Being older kits, these have pretty limited articulation for posing, and lack a proper adapter for the action base stands, but by using the clip attachment I was able to get some nice poses of the suits being parachuted in (although neither of them is compatible with the parachute pack from my 08th MS team kits).
The White Dingo Team GM includes the standard 0079 era shield as well as the small beam spray gun, but it also includes separate parts to recreate the Ground Type GM shield and 100mm machine gun. Supplementary media indicates that the White Dingo Team actually had a bit of a haphazard mix of dedicated Ground Type GMs as well as standard GMs outfitted with their easier to maintain gear. This version of the shield is the one included with the HGUC Ez-8, including a flip-down stand that lets it be deployed as mobile cover.
I took some time to drill a hole into the beam saber for the GM, letting it be actually compatible with a spare trans-pink beam saber effect part (rather than having to paint the opaque pre-moulded part originally designed for the kit).
The Guncannon Mass-Production is mostly unchanged from the standard kit, aside from some altered colour blocking in the feet. It includes an extra pistol grip hand along two open fist hand options, as well as a 90mm bullpup machine gun seen in other 0080 War in the Pocket era kits such as the GM Command Colony Type and GM Sniper II. It's a lot stockier than the prototype Guncannon seen in the original series, with an improved collapsing set of cannons. Rather than beam cannons, these are 240mm conventional cannons which can collapse and fold back into the backpack when not in use.
Overall, despite being a somewhat obscure P-Bandai offering, this was a really fun way to put together one of my favourite builds in a new way. I'm really looking forward to putting together more somewhat obscure GM variants in the future.
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