Use gdata.gauth.OAuth2TokenFromCredentials.
auth2token = gdata.gauth.OAuth2TokenFromCredentials(credentials)
gd_client = auth2token.authorize(gd_client)
OAuth2TokenFromCredentials is designed to help you use apiclient and gdata at the same time. Under the covers, it uses the credentials for making sure it has the auth information it needs to perform gdata calls.
Note, if you still get 403, it may be something else entirely. I was using a service account to access a user's data and was getting 403 because I hadn't spec'd the user properly in the SignedJwtAssertionCredentials call.
UPDATE: Here's the basic pattern I used:
from oauth2client.client import SignedJwtAssertionCredentials
credentials = SignedJwtAssertionCredentials(
"XXXXXXXXXXX@developer.gserviceaccount.com",
open("keyfile").read(),
scope=(
"https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive",
"https://spreadsheets.google.com/feeds",
"https://docs.google.com/feeds"
), # For example.
sub="user@gmail.com"
)
http = httplib2.Http()
http = credentials.authorize(http) # Not needed? See comment below.
auth2token = gdata.gauth.OAuth2TokenFromCredentials(credentials)
gd_client = gdata.photos.service.PhotosService() # For example.
gd_client = auth2token.authorize(gd_client)