what did general grievous look like before he was a cyborg

General Grievous was originally a flesh‑and‑blood alien warlord named Qymaen jai Sheelal , a Kaleesh warrior, not a droid or a human. Before becoming a cyborg, he looked like a tall, reptilian humanoid with pronounced facial features, horns, and the same piercing yellow eyes seen through his later mask.

Species and real name

• Grievous was born on the planet Kalee and belonged to the Kaleesh species, a reptilian, bipedal race from Wild Space.

• His original name was Qymaen jai Sheelal, a feared but respected war hero during the Huk War before the Republic and Jedi became involved.

Physical appearance before cybernetics

• As a Kaleesh, he had orange‑to‑brown skin, a long, narrow face, and a flat or recessed nose with elongated, almost fin‑like facial structures.

• He had three small horn‑like projections from his chin area and deep golden/yellow eyes, the one organic feature that still looks the same in his cyborg form.

Canon vision of pre‑cyborg Grievous

• A recent Star Wars story shows Grievous entering a mystical Force‑realm waterfall and briefly seeing himself as he was before his mechanical reconstruction.

• In that vision, he appears as a “regular” Kaleesh warrior: orange skin, wrinkled features, chin horns, and his trademark golden eyes glaring from an unmasked face.

Legends backstory and body loss

• In Legends material, Grievous was a battlefield commander whose ship was sabotaged, leading to a catastrophic crash that destroyed most of his body.

• Count Dooku and the Sith then used the disaster to rebuild him into a cyborg, preserving mainly his brain, eyes, spine, and a few organs inside a mechanical shell.

How close the mask is to his old face

• The iconic bone‑white “skull” mask is stylized after Kaleesh tribal masks, which themselves were inspired by Kaleesh facial structure and war totems.

• So while his cyborg face is not his real biological skull, its angular eye sockets, elongated mouth area, and overall silhouette are meant to echo his original Kaleesh look.

TL;DR: Before he was a cyborg, General Grievous was Qymaen jai Sheelal, a tall, reptilian Kaleesh war hero with orange‑brown skin, a long face with chin horns, and the same predatory yellow eyes seen behind his later metal mask.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.