The Bigness of Things

[toysdream]

Every now and then, we find ourselves discussing the sizes of various non-mobile suit mechanisms in the Gundam series - mobile armors, ships, aircraft, etc. (For example, this thread on the dimensions of the Gaw, and this discussion of mobile armors. I've been making some notes on this recently, so I thought I'd kick off a thread to discuss it.

Just to get things started, here's a modified version of the ship comparison chart from Gundam 0083:

http://www.ultimatemark.com/gundam/imag ... arison.jpg

My changes and additions are in red. Aside from throwing in a few mobile armors from Gundam 0083 and MS Igloo, and the ship comparison chart from Zeta Gundam, I've also resized or rescaled a few of the existing ships. Specifically:


Papua: Resized to the MS Igloo length of 253 meters. The MS Igloo ship lengths otherwise agree with Gundam 0083 across the board, so I figured this should follow suit.

Salamis Kai: Resized vertically to match the official specs. This makes it look a lot less squished.

Columbus Kai: Although the official specs say it's 55 meters high, this seems like a gross overestimate; the line art indicates a height to width ratio of 1:4, not 1:2, and when it docks with the Albion we can see it's the same height as the Albion's hangar. I've shrunk it vertically to about 30 meters, which looks much less weird.

Salamis and Columbus: I've thrown in the classic version of the Columbus with its two cargo compartments, and another Salamis enlarged to the length given in the old Roman Albums. This turns out to be a perfect match for the Salamis Kai included in the...

Zeta Gundam comparison chart: Scaled as per the Argama's overall length of 341.7 meters listed in the EX Model kit. The Salamis Kai ends up being exactly 288 meters as a result, so I rather suspect they calculated the Argama's length based on the Salamis, rather than vice versa.

The Jotunheim and the mobile armors are sized as per their official specs. Wow, the Jotunheim is huge!

-- Mark

[MrMarch]

I love size charts. Great work. I've always wanted to see the Neue Ziel stacked up against the big ships.

[InjuredPelican]

Is there anyway to get English on the rest of the ships. Unfortunately, i don't recognize them all by sight alone. Great job by the way. I forgot how large some of those mobile armors really are. I also didn't know the Zanzibar was a bit smaller than most Feddie ships. They seemed to make such a big deal about it in MSG, but size isn't everything I suppose.

[hitokirigarou]

Is there anyway to get English on the rest of the ships.

I'll translate those whose names are in katakana.

Left column:
Gwaden
Albion
Musai
Zanzibar
Papua
Pazock
Gwanzan

Right column:
Albion
Salamis
Columbus
Magellan
Birmingham

[InjuredPelican]

Thanks for the translation.

[HalfDemonInuyasha]

Yeah, it's nice to see these things as, especially in animation, size can be very difficult to make out in comparison to actual given sizes as things constantly look bigger or smaller than they appear to be.

Like the Neue Ziel and Dendrobium Orchis in 0083 looked almost the same size as battleships (like when the Neue Ziel is in front of the Gwaden x_x) but the chart actually shows how much smaller they are in comparison.

It can also give a much greater idea on how big something less known like the Gromlin II would be (based on its description as being almost like a battleship in itself rather than a Mobile Armor, especially with it supposing to have 2 normal Gromlin as remote units x_x) or other MA or giant MS that we don't necessarily see closely next to battleships like the Alpha Azieru and whatnot.

[InjuredPelican]

Yeah, it's nice to see these things as, especially in animation, size can be very difficult to make out in comparison to actual given sizes as things constantly look bigger or smaller than they appear to be.

Like the Neue Ziel and Dendrobium Orchis in 0083 looked almost the same size as battleships (like when the Neue Ziel is in front of the Gwaden x_x) but the chart actually shows how much smaller they are in comparison.

It can also give a much greater idea on how big something less known like the Gromlin II would be (based on its description as being almost like a battleship in itself rather than a Mobile Armor, especially with it supposing to have 2 normal Gromlin as remote units x_x) or other MA or giant MS that we don't necessarily see closely next to battleships like the Alpha Azieru and whatnot.

Do you know if there are any such charts for MS themselves, comparisons between normal sized and mobile armor types like Psycho Gundam? For some reason I find those kind of things fascinating. In fact, I own an entire book devoted to comparing the sizes of real life subjects.

[HalfDemonInuyasha]

Sadly, I don't (and I can't draw for crap either, lol).

But considering stats given in profiles, the Psyco Gundam, Psyco Gundam Mark II, and Queen Mansa are about equal if not bigger than the Neue Ziel in height. (Queen Mansa being the tallest of the 3.) Can't remember exact details.

[Dark Duel]

In ascending order of overall height, Psyco Gundam MkII is the shortest, at 40.74m; Psyco Gundam is next, at 41 meters evenly (so they're 26cm, or about 10" apart). Queen Mansa/Quin Mantha is the tallest, at 42.1m.
The Neue Ziel's overall height is 76.6 meters, nearly double that.

[toysdream]

I've just updated the chart with some more schematics, including the Garuda class, the Alpha Azieru, and a couple of ships from Gundam 0080.

Meanwhile:

It can also give a much greater idea on how big something less known like the Gromlin II would be (based on its description as being almost like a battleship in itself rather than a Mobile Armor, especially with it supposing to have 2 normal Gromlin as remote units x_x) or other MA or giant MS that we don't necessarily see closely next to battleships like the Alpha Azieru and whatnot.

Well, we have the Alpha Azieru now. The Gromlin II can probably be estimated, since the standard Gromlin is 60 meters high (most mobile armors seem to be 60-70 meters along their longest dimension).

Do you know if there are any such charts for MS themselves, comparisons between normal sized and mobile armor types like Psycho Gundam?

I've seen a lot of fan-made ones, but they're not very good, partly because people tend to line them up at the tip of the foremost foot (which varies dramatically depending on angle and drawing style) rather than the heel of the hind foot (which is where the official size comparisons normally line them up). As a result, things like The O (whose line art is in a really exaggerated perspective) tend to come out looking really teeny.

On the other hand, there are side-view schematics for some of these machines, so maybe I'll add them to the chart so you can compare against regular-sized mobile suits.

As Dark Duel mentions, the Psyco Gundams and the Queen Mansa are all roughly 40 meters tall, half the height of the Neue Ziel. I'll probably add them in the next update, although they'll probably seem disappointingly small.

-- Mark

[toysdream]

Okay, here's a sample mobile suit lineup with everything correctly aligned at the heel of the hind foot. (Note how, for instance, this puts the overall height and head height of The O and the Sazabi in the correct proportion to each other.)

http://www.ultimatemark.com/gundam/imag ... arison.jpg

Just FYI, the scale here is 5 pixels to the meter, versus 1 pixel per meter for the ships chart. So if you shrink this MS lineup down to 20% of its current size, you can compare it against the stuff on the ships chart.

-- Mark

[SolidSpidr]

Did what Mark said to do and it gives a good perspective of the ms sizes. The only thing I could ask for is if the Jupitris was in it although that thing would easily take up most of the space.

[Gelgoog Jager]

Regarding the length of the Salamis and Salamis Kai (Zeta version), since it seems to be consistent at 288m, can we consider that the 0083 has the same length?

I've just updated the chart with some more schematics, including the Garuda class, the Alpha Azieru, and a couple of ships from Gundam 0080.

I have my doubts regarding the size of the 0080 ships, specially regarding the Tivvay/Chivvay Final production type. I will refer to some of the pics from this thread:

http://www.mechatalk.net/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=12575

The regular Chivvay(or Chibe) should be around 266m long. If you compare the regular Chivvay and Chivvay Kai (from Z) with the 0080 version you will find little in common, but one part that does seem to remain largely the same in all versions is the bridge. If you use the bridge as reference, the 0080 version easily seems to double the original Chivvay in size, which would be around 500m, which sounds to farfetched since it would make it longer than the Dolos.

However, MS Igloo changed some of the proportions of the Chivvay, among which the bridge is depicted smaller. Furthermore, the scan of the ships from Unicorn (the last one of the ones I posted regarding the Chivvay) shows that the Chivvay Kai is now also drawn based on the MS Igloo version. If we use the bridge of these versions as the reference, the Chivvay from 0080 seems to be only about 50% bigger than the standard version, about 400m.

Other Zeon ships in the 400m range include the Gwazine and Gwadan, which are 440m and 415m long respectively. These 2 are classified as Battleships rather than Cruisers. As it turns out, the profile of the Chivvay final production type also classifies it as a Battleship rather than a Heavy Cruiser (the classification for both the Chivvay and Chivvay Kai), which seems to further support the the possibility of the Chivvay being on the 400m range.

Finally, in the other thread we also discussed the length of the Dogossse Gier, along several other UC ships, and the conclusion was that the Dogosse Gier should be somewhere in the 600m range, the same as the Dogosse Gier class ship "General Revil".

[toysdream]

Regarding the length of the Salamis and Salamis Kai (Zeta version), since it seems to be consistent at 288m, can we consider that the 0083 has the same length?

The animation is kind of inconsistent on this score; in some shots it seems to be about 300 meters (for example, when Cima stands on the bridge or when it collides with a Musai), and in others it's more like the 200 meters claimed in the specs (i.e when Gato parks next to one in the Neue Ziel). At this point, I think I just don't care enough to have an opinion.

As for the Chivvay and Tivvay, I would have been inclined to agree until I came across a scale comparison chart for the 0080 ships tucked away in the new "Ship & Aerospace Plane Encyclopedia." This seems to have been created as part of the original line art and then hidden away for the past twenty years; I pasted it straight into my chart, scaling it based on the mobile suit depicted, and found that these versions of the Musai and Chivvay appear to be exactly the same size as the originals. (This also indicates that Sunrise has considered the Chivvay to be about 260 meters all along.)

There's something to be said for scaling ships based on the bridge and other common features, but once we start doing that then we have to throw out all the official specs. The Ra Cailum and Clop class, for example, share a lot of common features that seem to be bigger on the former ship. Then we have the Callisto and Amalthea from Victory Gundam, and the Birmingham and Dogosse Gier... ugh! At this point, as long as we're not being asked to accept a sheer impossibility, I'm inclined to take their word for it.

-- Mark

[InjuredPelican]

Okay, here's a sample mobile suit lineup with everything correctly aligned at the heel of the hind foot. (Note how, for instance, this puts the overall height and head height of The O and the Sazabi in the correct proportion to each other.)

http://www.ultimatemark.com/gundam/imag ... arison.jpg

Just FYI, the scale here is 5 pixels to the meter, versus 1 pixel per meter for the ships chart. So if you shrink this MS lineup down to 20% of its current size, you can compare it against the stuff on the ships chart.

-- Mark

Thanks a lot, Mark. Its weird comparing some of the older designs like Psycho Gundam to even the much sharper Quin Mantha. Speaking of, even though their about the same height, Psycho looks positively wimpy compared to the Quin Mantha. I also thought Sazabi was fairly tall for an MS, but it's easily dwarfed. It would be interesting to also add in F91 or Victory since they're part of the "miniaturization" effort.

[Dark Duel]

Well, most of the machines on that chart lineup are significantly taller than the average MS even for their day: Compare the Sazabi to the Jegan, and you'll note that it IS in fact much taller. It's only dwarfed because monsters like the Quin Mantha and Psyco Gundams are more than twice the size of the average MS, and Sazabi, while quite large, is nowhere near as big.

[toysdream]

First, a followup on Gelgoog Jager's concerns about the Tivvay from Gundam 0080...

I mentioned that I don't worry too much about these dimensions unless it requires us to "accept a sheer impossibility," but I think I've noticed one here. I turned up some more line art (from Hobby Japan's "Gundam Mechanics" series) that shows the interior of the Tivvay's launch deck, plus a size comparison of a mobile suit launching from the ship. Although the latter is from a slightly different angle than the regular line art, I've tried to scale them to roughly the same size here:

http://www.ultimatemark.com/gundam/imag ... arison.jpg

This makes the Tivvay look about 20 times longer than a mobile suit, which supports the 400 meter estimate. And what's more, since the launch deck has to be wide enough to fit the Gelgoog Jaeger's shoulders, it needs to be at least 14 meters or so across. The deck looks about 1.5 times higher than it is wide (and the animation confirms this), so those sliding doors should be about 20 meters high. The side view lineup, on the other hand, indicates they're more like 10 meters high. There's really no way you could fit a Gelgoog through these doors!

If we ignored the depictions of the hangar in the animation and line art, it's possible to imagine a Tivvay whose front doors open onto a single central launch deck, ten meters high and about 15 meters wide. This would be big enough to launch a Gelgoog lying face down, and presumably the standard Chivvay works exactly like that. But the line art of a launching mobile suit, and the physical constraints of the hangar doors, indicate that a Tivvay with two launch decks (as shown in the animation) would need to be about 400 meters long just as Gelgoog Jaeger suggests.

It's an interesting dilemma. Maybe I'll add an alternate silhouette for the Tivvay in GJ's honor.


Speaking of Gelgoogs, here's a quick mobile suit lineup with a bunch of machines from First Gundam, 08th MS Team, Gundam 0080 and Gundam 0083:

http://www.ultimatemark.com/gundam/imag ... earwar.jpg

Most of these are sized as per the current official specs. A few notes on these:

* The Ball is scaled so that the main body (sans turret) is 7 meters high, which has been the case in all the recent model kits.

* The Gelgoog is sized so that it's 19.2 meters tall at the crown of its head, rather than at the top of its fin. The model sheet for the Gelgoog Marine, which includes a human figure for comparison, confirms this notion. The overall height at the top of the fin is roughly 21 meters, the same height listed in all the classic specs.

* Although the Xamel's overall height is supposed to be 27 meters, I've scaled it according to the human and Gundam heights indicated on the original model sheet. This suggests that it's about 20 meters high at the shoulder, which is also noted on the mobile suit size comparison charts produced for the OVA series. As a result, the Xamel looks more like 30 meters at the top of its folded cannon.

EDIT: Ah, there we go! I added a profile view of the Xamel, and it looks like it's exactly 27 meters tall when the cannon is in firing position.

-- Mark

[InjuredPelican]

Cool! the Xamel is quite a beast compared to the other suits. And the tall Zeong just looks ridiculous. No wonder they left the legs off...

[MrMarch]

A note about scaling, I had to do a lot of case-by-case adjusting when I built my own size comparison charts for Macross mecha. As has been mentioned, not all line art is drawn from the same perspective and different artists use different dramatic angles when drawing mecha. I typically scale mecha based on a ground point within the arch of the right foot (or the foot farthest in the background) to a point somewhere just above the forehead. This provides the most consistent and accurate method for comparing mecha. But again, some pictures must be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. In the Gundam size chart example provided above, the PMX-003 "The O" is a good example of a very dramatically skewed piece of line art that would require a lot of adjustment to get it's size correct relative to other more conventional mecha drawings.

[toysdream]

Yep, the perspective issues are pretty crazy! Ultimately, you'd need to draw new art from scratch. But at least the handful of cases where we have profile views (as for the Xamel, The O, and the Baund Doc) give us a more objective double-check.

Meanwhile, I've figured out where the original Gundam 0083 ship comparison chart got most of its ship silhouettes. The Gwazine, Musai, Zanzibar, Magellan, and Salamis all seem to be traced from the side views provided in Gundam Century, and so I've added in a couple of the other side views from this book - a large size Salamis, the Dolos, and a Musai with HRSL capsule. Now we're really building up a menagerie!

-- Mark