eM4 Bikers on Motorbikes

 I've been a fan of motorbike gangs ever since I first saw Mad Max and Mad Max 2: the Road Warrior at the cinema many years ago. These eight bikers that I'm going to review are based on two figure sets available from eM4 Miniatures, although when I purchased mine, they were produced by Grenadier Models, now sadly defunct. I'm going back many years now to the 1980's.
First in line is 0460 Street Bike and Rider with Katana. I'm sure that this rider was inspired by one of the Yakuza bikers from the film Black Rain, which came out shortly before this figure was originally released. I think this is an excellent figure. A biker with katana is so cool! Red and black are a good colour combo for bikers. This figure would work equally well as a Ganger or a Survivor.
Next up, I've used the rider armed with an Uzi, that you get with the trail bike shown in the lower two photographs. Swapping riders is a doddle as they fit well on either bike. Again, I've gone for the red and black colour scheme but this time red is the dominant colour. You can see by the logo at the bottom of the bike's body that he rides a Kawasaki. Whether this is an actual Kawasaki bike or not doesn't bother me. I just think it looks cool.

Third in line is my blue and white bike and rider. The rider on this bike came with the trail bike as an alternative choice to the rider with the Uzi. Sadly, eM4 don't make him anymore, so I suspect you'll have to check with someone like e-Bay if you really want him. To be honest, he works better on the trail bike than the street bike but what the heck - he gives me an extra rider and boosts my bike gang.
The last of the riders on a street bike is totally unique, so don't go searching the Internet for her. She is based on an obscure comic book character called Big Berta (note spelling - there is no "h" in her name) who appeared in a few issues of Crisis comic shortly before it folded. I took an instant liking to her. She was an anarchic slut, who lived in a near future city called Cicero. She often accosted strangers, took them back to her place for sex and afterwards fed them to her pet shark called Pythagoras! Her catchphrase was "Yammy! It's penetration time!" which had a variety of meanings depending on the circumstances. I made a few alterations to the bike to make it look more like hers and I sculpted the figure myself. I also sculpted a dismounted version of her. I've scoured the Internet for any references of her but there's none. Wherever I search I'm asked "do I mean Big Bertha?" Nope, it's Big Berta!

The next batch of figures are based on eM4's 0461 Trail Bike and Rider with Uzi. When I first saw him I was immediately reminded of Arnie from the first Terminator film. Hence, I painted him to look like Mr. Schwarzenegger's iconic movie character. Painting the bike black was a no-brainer as well. The rider is well sculpted and nicely posed. He is a worthy addition to any bike gang.
To his left, I've kept the same rider but made a couple of simple conversions. First I cut his head off and replaced it with a helmeted head that I sculpted out of modelling putty. I left his gun arm off and sculpted a new one on that is holding the handlebar. I went for the easy option and painted both bike and rider black.

Next in line, is the rider who was wielding the katana in the first two photos. As I said, the riders swap with one another very easily. I left his left arm off, along with the scabard on his back. I sculpted a new left arm, very similar to the previous biker, gripping the handlebar. This was slightly harder to sculpt in that the arm has tassles running down it. I painted the bike and the rider's helmet in gloss purple. Looking at the small photo above it looks black but if you left click on the photo to blow it up to full screen size you can see it is purple.

Finally, we come to the third rider that Grenadier made but which eM4 don't make. He fits much better on the trail bike and he looks like a scrambler biker. I added a second saddlebag to the back left of the bike, which you can clearly see in the above photo. I gave the rider red leathers and painted the bike and the rider's helmet in gloss crimson.

So there we have a rather nice bike gang and hopefully, this article will inspire you to buy more than just one of the two eM4 bikes and riders that are available. Both sets cost a very reasonable £2.50 each. I still have a few more bikes and riders to show you. Also, I haven't started making my 10 West Wind bikers or the West Wind Brotherhood and Sisterhood bikers. Sigh, so much to do, so little time! I try to get my lead mountain down to a reasonable size but too often I get lured by new stuff that I want.

Look out for my next post. It's something a lot of you have asked for - size comparison pics!