The wheel bike force would not be complete without General Grievous to lead them! I picked up the set as the same time as the first batch of bikes that I got. Another nice model. It has the same bike sprues as the normal bikes, so no surprises there. The base is different, with a larger bike mounting piece. Then there is the spue with Grievous. He comes with a couple of hand options, but is straight forward. Due to how the cap mounts, you cannot leave it off, as there is a large mounting digit in hit upper back. It looks better on, so no issues there.
I worked on the bike at the same time as the units of bikes, so I will not go into all that again. The Grevious mount is a little different, in that his feet are molded on the peddles. The others were glued in. This makes the after assembly a little easier.
I pulled out my painted infantry pose model to use as a guide. I decided that I would paint him with the cape separate and attach it once I finished painting the model, just to make it easier to get to everything. I started with a gray spray paint over everything. I then hit the planned under armor with a black wash and then with a medium then light gray drybrush. Next, I worked on the armor, by applying some dark sand, followed my a sepia wash. I then highlighted up with more dark sand and then light sand.
I hit the eyes with some white then yellow and then a agrax wash. I then used some black for the cat pupils. I was not too happy with the light detail on the face, so did a little pin wash with more agrax in some areas. I hit the lightsaber hilts with silver and a black wash. The blades were done with a glow green and blue from Army Painter (I switched to these paints for fantasy colors earlier this year). I then added green and blue washes to the base and a little white to the tip and finished off with some gloss coat.
Like the other bikes, I did not like the debris on the base, so I converted it to rock and raised areas. I did this by hacking off the most annoying bits with an Xacto and covering the other areas with some dark brown filler putty. I painted the exposed rock tan and hit it with a wash. I then worked on the rest of the base with the GW crackle earth, a drybrush and some tufts.
With that, I was ready for the final assembly. Some plastic glue to attack the bike to the base and then attach the cape. Disaster! I was sure I test attached the cape before painting, but I must not have, as it would not fit over the heads and shoulders…. A little fiddling and I decided I could cut the front at the clasp and open it up a bit. A little bending and I was able to get it on the model and reattach front. Fortunately, acrylic paints are flexible! With that, Wheel Bike Grievous is ready to take the field with his bike force!
- Manteuffel