Hello Everybody, it’s that time again…I have another design to share with you all and a person called Qymaen jai Sheelal. Now this name may not mean much to most casual fans but Qymaen jai Sheelal was a warlord of the Kaleesh species. Qymaen was badly injured in a ship crash but was rescued and his damaged body was replaced by a cybernetic exoskeleton and life support system. He became a cyborg called Grievous. He then joined forces with Count Dooku to help lead the Confederation of Independent Systems’ droid army and learnt to duel with lightsabers mastering all seven styles of combat. After Dooku’s death Grievous became the Droid Army commander and was known as General Grievous. Grevious is famous for stealing Jedi lightsabers as trophies of victory, but now he won’t need to steal any more as I have designed one just for him, this is Kaleesh Saber…
As you can see this hilt is quite complex and a little bit different! It is based on the skull of Grevious and even has a neat little trick built in. Firstly I built the main body of the hilt to look like the upper skull and using the tools in Blender carved in the two arrow like decorations on the “forehead”. I next worked on the pommel which forms the lower jaw. Being as Grievous doesn’t have a moving mouth made this a bit easier to accomplish. The lower jaw/pommel does have a few decorative items, the silver teardrop shaped nodules and four vertical grills to form the mouth as it were. If you zoomed in close enough you will see that the grills have tiny holes!
Next I proceeded to add the protrusions on the side of his head where his “ears” attach. The Kaleesh had very distinct ears that in his cyborg form look like wings. From the pictures you will see that the “ears” actually rotate 90 degrees, from being combat ready and horizontal to a vertical position. This is the little trick I mentioned as when the ears are vertical they form two feet that act as a saber display stand. The saber rests on the ears and the Covertech Belt Clip Knob! To switch the saber on/off I created a pair of eyes which double as the activation switch and sound FX buttons (using micro switches called Tactiles) Just press the eyeballs! I have a few studio/glamour shots so here you go…
Qymaen jai Sheelal as I mention was a Kaleesh warlord but that was in the discarded material Disney rejected in their buyout of LucasFilm, however Disney LucasFilm rewrote Grievous’ backstory then included him in two cartoon shows (“The Clone Wars” series and the later computer animated “Star Wars – The Clone Wars” series.) In Disney’s new storyline Grievous didn’t become a cyborg because of injuries sustained in a ship crash, but because he attempted to modify himself and become a superior being than the Jedi were. Unfortunately this caused a huge strain on his remaining organs and resulted in his Cough-Cough and rasping breath. It was also these organic bits which led to his demise when he fought Obi-Wan Kenobi on the planet Utapau in Revenge of the Sith. Obi-Wan pried open the chest plates of Grievous’ skeleton and shot the exposed heart and lungs with a blaster…how uncivilised!
Well I suppose this would be a good place to end this post, I mean Grievous doesn’t really need a saber now! However it was fun building this one and challenged me to try and replicate something very identifiable but in saber form, I hope I succeeded. Before I go as always I need to say a big thank you to all of you, whether a first time viewer or one of my loyal regular followers thanks so much for checking Kaleesh out. You are greatly appreciated. I hope you will call back to see future posts as I have two big movie blockbuster inspired hilts (the films will cause a buzz and a splash when released in December) and one based on a “Fully operational battle sta…Saber!” Till next time….
“Kaleesh Saber” is a For Tyeth Editions design and is ©Copyright of For Tyeth/FTSabersite 2016-2018. “General Grievous” and all other names, logos images and related material are Trademarks/©Copyright of Disney/LucasFilm.
