The idea to use the concept of Russian stacking dolls came to me while I was thinking of objects strongly associated with countries. All the other ideas I had come up with had easily turned themselves into mobile fighters, but with the Matryoshka, I had to think about it. The drawings below show some of the early ideas I was playing with.

One was to make each of the stacking dolls into an individual mobile suit from other Gundam series. I was thinking of having the largest one be the Psycho-Gundam MK1, the middle-sized one be the classic RX-78 Gundam, and the smallest one be the V-Gundam. I would have to make them egg-shaped and hollow which wasn't too hard with the psycho gundam. In thinking it over though, I realized that the Russian-ness would be lost and G-Gundam never references other gundam series, so it wouldn't be appropriate.

Then I had an idea to have the center doll be the only one with arms and legs, they would extend through holes in the larger shells as seen in the drawings on the bottom. This was just too awkward.

At one point the Gundam Commissar was going to be at the center of the dolls. I was getting frustrated, so I worked on the Oktoberfest gundam, but the core concept of the Matryoshka was just too good for me to give up.

(continue)