Prequel Droids 2.0

After my last Battle Droid build, I kept the prequel bug going and picked up this amazing General Grievous figure kit. I had seen many people build this on YouTube and Instagram and heard many good things about it. In addition, there was at that time a distinct lack of Grievous action figures on the market in this scale. Since then, several more have been released, but based on what I have seen, this figure beats them all by a mile.

One of the best things about this figure kit is how poseable it is, while still maintaining an ability to stand up without a base. Many Grievous figures have the issue of being too top heavy or have weak ankle joints. I have not seen this issue with the Bandai kit at all.

Some of my favorite parts of the Grievous model kit are the molded inner organs (which I never saw in the movies/tv shows), and the molded eye colors. I added washes to both the organs and the eyes to highlight the details and give the look of bodily fluids. Some extra gloss coat on the eyes also gives him an unhealthy, watery look.

One of the most common complaints about this figure build is the way the neck fits together. The pieces are a little complicated and the directions, as is sometimes the case with Bandai, can be a little unclear. My tip: Be as gentle as you can and use glue if necessary. I used a couple dabs of glue to keep some of the smaller connector parts attached. Using glue will not affect the movement of Grievous' head.

You have a few options for displaying and posing Grievous. He comes with a cape accessory, which is not great and keeps his arms a bit limited. I know there are some custom capes to be found on the internet, so if that interests you, check one of those out instead of the provided cap.

 My favorite display option, however, which you can probably tell from the number of pictures, is all four arms out, a lightsaber in each hand. This is Grievous' most intimidating and iconic pose in my opinion, plus it gives a great chance to showcase all four lightsabers that come with the kit. Be prepared to do a little paint work on the lightsabers if you want them to look authentic.

For weathering I used a combination of Gundam markers for the narrow cracks and an overall dark grey wash to dirty him up a bit. In addition I did some gunmetal drybrushing on the darker under parts. I was pretty happy with the results. Enjoy the slideshow of the rest of my pictures below! This has definitely been my favorite figure kit from Bandai so far!