Gundam mouse pads for the desk

Padrift's Gundam mouse pads and desk mats carry original mecha art inspired by Mobile Suit Gundam and the series that grew out of it, printed edge to edge on a 3 mm neoprene pad with a fabric top, a non-slip base and stitched edges. There are eight sizes in the range, from 11.8″ × 15.7″ (30 × 40 cm) for a mouse corner to 23.6″ × 47.2″ (60 × 120 cm) for a desk-length mat, and no pad is made until its order comes through.

This page covers the whole franchise, from the original 1979 series and its Universal Century sequels to the alternate timelines: Wing, SEED, 00, Iron-Blooded Orphans, The Witch from Mercury and more.

Where Gundam starts

Mobile Suit Gundam premiered in 1979, made by Sunrise and directed by Yoshiyuki Tomino, with mechanical designs by Kunio Okawara and characters by Yoshikazu Yasuhiko. The year is Universal Century 0079, and the Principality of Zeon, a nation of space colonies, is fighting the Earth Federation for its independence in what becomes known as the One Year War. A teenager named Amuro Ray climbs into the Federation's new prototype, the RX-78-2 Gundam, and ends up fighting aboard the warship White Base.

What set it apart was its tone. The robots are weapons built in factories, maintained by mechanics and called mobile suits; the war has two sides with their own reasons; and the pilots are young people under terrible pressure. That realism, and the plastic model kits Bandai began selling in 1980, turned Gundam into a franchise that is still producing new series more than forty years later.

Hard lines and a keyboard

Mecha art is unusually comfortable on a desk. A mobile suit is all straight edges, panel lines, vents and armor plates, and that mechanical geometry sits naturally next to the rows of a keyboard and the angles of a monitor stand. Where a soft character portrait can look out of place among peripherals, a Gundam looks like it belongs there.

Composition matters, though. A mobile suit standing upright suits the deep sizes, where its head and V-fin rise above the keyboard. A mobile suit in flight, or one drawn horizontally with its beam rifle extended, suits the long, shallow sizes, where it can stretch across the full width.

The tricolor

The RX-78-2 is painted in what is known as the tricolor scheme: a white body, a blue chest, red details and a yellow V-fin on the head. Primary colors on white are about as easy to match as a palette gets. A white keyboard with a few red, blue or yellow keycaps, or a white desk with one primary-colored accessory, picks up the scheme without any effort.

The tricolor appears again and again across the franchise, on many later Gundams, so a design in those colors reads as Gundam to anyone who has seen any of the series. It suits a bright, clean desk better than a dark one, and cool white lighting keeps the white armor crisp.

Zeon red and green

The other side of the One Year War has its own palette. Zeon's mass-produced Zaku II is green, with a single pink mono-eye that sweeps across a slit in its head, and its most famous pilot, Char Aznable, flies a red custom Zaku and is known as the Red Comet. Char's masked rivalry with Amuro runs through the Universal Century, all the way to his red Sazabi in Char's Counterattack.

A Zeon design suits a dark gaming desk. The green of the Zaku goes well with dark green or olive accessories, while Char's red belongs on a black desk with red RGB. The mono-eye is a gift for lighting: a pink or red glow in the dark of the art, echoed by a single LED strip behind the monitor.

Wing Zero across the mat

Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, from 1995, moves to a separate timeline called After Colony, where five teenage pilots are sent to Earth in five Gundams to fight a military alliance. Its signature machine is the Wing Gundam Zero, especially in the version redesigned for Endless Waltz, with two large feathered wings. In the US, Wing aired on Cartoon Network's Toonami block in 2000.

Spread wings are made for a long mat. On an XL, 15.7″ × 35.4″ (40 × 90 cm), or a 3XL, 19.7″ × 39.4″ (50 × 100 cm), Wing Zero can sit at one end with its wings fanned across the top of the mat, and white feathers can drift over the rest. It suits a white or light gray desk, and it is the most elegant Gundam layout for a setup where the keyboard sits in the center.

The Unicorn and its glow

The RX-0 Unicorn Gundam, from the Gundam Unicorn series released between 2010 and 2014, starts as a white machine with a single horn on its head. In Destroy Mode, the horn splits into a V-fin, the armor slides apart and a psycho-frame glows through the gaps, red at first and later green.

That glow is the reason the Unicorn works so well on a gaming desk. A Destroy Mode design is mostly white and gray with glowing lines, so it comes alive under matching RGB: red LEDs for the early Destroy Mode, green for the later one. Keep the keyboard over the darker part of the art and let the glowing panels run along the edges, where you see them.

Timelines as palettes

Each Gundam series has its own look, and choosing a timeline is a quick way to set the tone of a desk.

• Mobile Fighter G Gundam (1994): martial arts tournaments between nations, the loudest and brightest series, for a colorful setup.
• Gundam SEED (2002): the Strike and Freedom Gundams, clean whites and blues with bright accents, for a white desk.
• Gundam 00 (2007): the Exia and its sword, a sharper, more angular look in blue, white and green.
• Iron-Blooded Orphans (2015): the Barbatos, battered armor and a dusty, war-worn palette, for a dark or wooden desk.
• The Witch from Mercury (2022): a school setting and the Aerial, white and blue, for a bright, modern setup.

Line art and schematics

Gundam is a franchise that loves technical detail: cross-sections, cockpit layouts, armor breakdowns and specification sheets. A schematic-style design, a mobile suit drawn in white or light blue line art on navy, is the subtlest way to put Gundam on a desk. It reads as an engineering blueprint to coworkers and as a specific machine to anyone who knows the series.

Line art also keeps the mat calm under a keyboard. Fine lines on a dark background don't fight with the keys, and the details stay visible in the margins around them. It suits a work desk, a study desk or a home office where you'd rather not have a full battle scene under your hands.

A desk for building Gunpla

For many people, Gundam means Gunpla: Bandai's plastic model kits, built at a desk with nippers, a hobby knife and patience. A desk mat helps here. The soft surface catches small parts that roll off the runners, the non-slip base stops the mat sliding as you work, and a mid-tone design makes tiny pieces easier to spot than a busy one.

A word of caution: the fabric top is made for a mouse, not a blade. Keep a separate cutting mat on top of the pad for anything with a hobby knife, and keep paints and cement away from the fabric. An XXL, 23.6″ × 35.4″ (60 × 90 cm), gives you room for a cutting mat, the kit's runners and the instructions without anything falling off the edge.

Space, colonies and the long view

Many of the best Gundam battles happen in space, among the cylindrical colonies of the Sides, asteroid bases and debris fields, with beam rifles drawing pink and yellow lines through the dark. A space design gives a desk mat a deep, dark background that suits black peripherals and RGB of any color.

On a 4XL, 23.6″ × 47.2″ (60 × 120 cm), a colony can stretch across the far end of the mat while two mobile suits clash at the other, with the starfield running beneath the keyboard. Dark backgrounds also hide wear well, which matters on a pad this large.

Haro for the small pad

Haro, the round robot that bounces around the White Base and later appears across the franchise, is the easiest Gundam character to put on a small pad. It is a green ball with two eyes and flapping ear panels, and it reads clearly even when it takes up only a corner of an 11.8″ × 15.7″ (30 × 40 cm) pad. It also gives a desk a friendly touch that most mecha art doesn't.

The Gundam Card Game

Gundam also has its own trading card game, Bandai's Gundam Card Game. If you play, our 14″ × 24″ (35.5 × 61 cm) size matches the usual dimensions of a card game playmat, with room for a deck, a hand and a few units in play. These mouse pads don't have printed zones; Padrift's card game playmats, which do, are a separate range. A plain Gundam design in that size works for casual games and as a mouse pad between them.

Sizes for a Gundam desk

Every product page lists the sizes for its own design. These setups suit Gundam art.

Setup	Size	Good for
Mouse only	S, 11.8″ × 15.7″ (30 × 40 cm)	Haro or a Zaku's mono-eye
Card games or a laptop	TCG Mat, 14″ × 24″ (35.5 × 61 cm)	A single mobile suit portrait
Compact keyboard	M, 11.8″ × 27.6″ (30 × 70 cm)	A mobile suit in flight
Keyboard and mouse	XL, 15.7″ × 35.4″ (40 × 90 cm)	Wing Zero with its wings spread
Gunpla building	XXL, 23.6″ × 35.4″ (60 × 90 cm)	Room for kits and a cutting mat
The whole desk	4XL, 23.6″ × 47.2″ (60 × 120 cm)	A battle in space

For long, narrow desks, L at 11.8″ × 31.5″ (30 × 80 cm) and 3XL at 19.7″ × 39.4″ (50 × 100 cm) sit between the sizes above.

Gifts for a Gundam fan

A Gundam pad suits a Gunpla builder, someone who grew up with Wing on Toonami, a fan of The Witch from Mercury or anyone with a shelf of model kits above their desk. Pick their favorite machine or series, or choose the RX-78-2 if you aren't sure. Without measurements, XL is the safe pick for an ordinary keyboard-and-mouse desk; for a builder, go bigger.

It takes 1–3 business days to print the pad, which then ships from Turkey; US delivery usually adds another 2–5 business days.

Keeping a Gundam pad clean

A desk that doubles as a building bench collects dust and plastic shavings. Shake the pad out over a trash can after each build, roll a lint roller over it and, when dust sticks, go over it with a damp cloth. A deeper clean means hand washing: lukewarm water, a little mild soap, a thorough rinse, a towel pressed firmly over the pad to draw the water out and a flat surface to dry on. Keep it away from washing machines and dryers, and never put an iron on it; the fade-resistant print keeps the tricolor bright.

A note on names

We name Gundam, Mobile Suit Gundam and the mobile suits, pilots and series on this page only to show where our designs come from. Padrift is not affiliated with, sponsored or endorsed by Sotsu, Sunrise, Bandai Namco Filmworks or Bandai.