Analyzer
Master Member
I finished some of my Ties that had been in the stash forever. I held off so long since I wanted to get a uniform color for my Bandai ties as I would be mixing paint instead of using Tamiya TS-32 Haze Grey or the Testors grey I used on my very first Fine Molds tie many many years ago.
Tamiya Haze grey has always been touted as just about the best match you could get out of a can for the Tie color. I painted my Fine Molds tie with it and always felt it seemed to tad too dark. Plus it is in a spray can. I know I could have used Archive X paints if I wanted a more perfect match to the studio model, but I had been collecting Tamiya paints for a long time and had a bunch at hand.
I found Tamiya Ocean Grey XF-82 to be a very nice color, and when lightened with white, it looks pretty close to the Haze Grey color, but a bit more grey. I added just a very small bit of Tamiya XF-23 Light Blue to shift a little more blue.
At any rate, enough about color and onto the size comparisons and pics. Hopefully this helps anyone starting out who may not know what if any differences there are
The Fine Molds ties at 1/72 are noticeably smaller than the Bandai 1/72 versions. Which is correct then? the short answer is both. They each derived the scale based on different sources for how large a real world tie fighter would be. That "official" source number changed sometime between when Fine Molds had the license and Bandai had the license. So Fine Molds was correct for the time, but Bandai's reflects the current figures and also ties out with the Fantasy Flight games sources used for the X-Wing game.
Fine Molds on left, Bandai on the right
Here we have the Fine Molds Tie Advanced on the left and Bandai on the right
Also, some of the details are a bit different. Like the shape of the greeblie parts on the back of the Fine Molds one seem a bit more compressed length wise compared to the what seems like a more proportionally narrower and longer area on the Bandai
Regarding color, Tamiya Haze Grey on the left and the XF-82 based mix on the right
As for the regular tie
The Fine Molds one I painted a long time ago and was the 2nd or third model I painted after getting the Star Wars model bug. I had done very little research into things and just went with a gut color based on what I saw on screen in a New Hope. I used Testors grey primer and for a long time was satisfied with it until everyone started talking about Haze Grey being the color. At any rate, size difference here is even more pronounced than with the Tie Advanced
Fine Molds here on the left in the first pic, (and on the right in the others, sorry about the swap)
Another notable difference is the thickness of the wing supports on the Fine Molds tie compared to the Bandai. The Fine Molds wings are as thick or thicker that the larger Bandai one despite being smaller
And the Tie Interceptor. Forgive me about the unfinished Bandai kit, but I forgot to paint the sprue for the outer wing supports and I have run out of thinner for the airbrush so it has not been weathered or finished yet in addition to not adding the wing supports. But for comparison purposes it will do.
The most notable difference beyond size, is the absences of the Sherman tank part on the back of the Bandai kit.
And speaking of that Sherman tank part for the back. It is on the regular Tie and the Vader tie. Since it is also on the Fine Molds Interceptor I was surpirsed to find it not on the Bandai Interceptor. The piece is actually on the sprue in the Bandai kit, but it does not have the slot on the model to add it. Also it includes the gun bits for the regular tie as well as the Interceptor specific ones
And finally, a group shot with my Tie Striker since I finished it at the same time
And one more point of interest. Seems like they reverted to the old numbers for Tie dimensions when doing the new trilogy design. The FIrst Order Tie seems very close to the original tie size
Tamiya Haze grey has always been touted as just about the best match you could get out of a can for the Tie color. I painted my Fine Molds tie with it and always felt it seemed to tad too dark. Plus it is in a spray can. I know I could have used Archive X paints if I wanted a more perfect match to the studio model, but I had been collecting Tamiya paints for a long time and had a bunch at hand.
I found Tamiya Ocean Grey XF-82 to be a very nice color, and when lightened with white, it looks pretty close to the Haze Grey color, but a bit more grey. I added just a very small bit of Tamiya XF-23 Light Blue to shift a little more blue.
At any rate, enough about color and onto the size comparisons and pics. Hopefully this helps anyone starting out who may not know what if any differences there are
The Fine Molds ties at 1/72 are noticeably smaller than the Bandai 1/72 versions. Which is correct then? the short answer is both. They each derived the scale based on different sources for how large a real world tie fighter would be. That "official" source number changed sometime between when Fine Molds had the license and Bandai had the license. So Fine Molds was correct for the time, but Bandai's reflects the current figures and also ties out with the Fantasy Flight games sources used for the X-Wing game.
Fine Molds on left, Bandai on the right
Here we have the Fine Molds Tie Advanced on the left and Bandai on the right
Also, some of the details are a bit different. Like the shape of the greeblie parts on the back of the Fine Molds one seem a bit more compressed length wise compared to the what seems like a more proportionally narrower and longer area on the Bandai
Regarding color, Tamiya Haze Grey on the left and the XF-82 based mix on the right
As for the regular tie
The Fine Molds one I painted a long time ago and was the 2nd or third model I painted after getting the Star Wars model bug. I had done very little research into things and just went with a gut color based on what I saw on screen in a New Hope. I used Testors grey primer and for a long time was satisfied with it until everyone started talking about Haze Grey being the color. At any rate, size difference here is even more pronounced than with the Tie Advanced
Fine Molds here on the left in the first pic, (and on the right in the others, sorry about the swap)
Another notable difference is the thickness of the wing supports on the Fine Molds tie compared to the Bandai. The Fine Molds wings are as thick or thicker that the larger Bandai one despite being smaller
And the Tie Interceptor. Forgive me about the unfinished Bandai kit, but I forgot to paint the sprue for the outer wing supports and I have run out of thinner for the airbrush so it has not been weathered or finished yet in addition to not adding the wing supports. But for comparison purposes it will do.
The most notable difference beyond size, is the absences of the Sherman tank part on the back of the Bandai kit.
And speaking of that Sherman tank part for the back. It is on the regular Tie and the Vader tie. Since it is also on the Fine Molds Interceptor I was surpirsed to find it not on the Bandai Interceptor. The piece is actually on the sprue in the Bandai kit, but it does not have the slot on the model to add it. Also it includes the gun bits for the regular tie as well as the Interceptor specific ones
And finally, a group shot with my Tie Striker since I finished it at the same time
And one more point of interest. Seems like they reverted to the old numbers for Tie dimensions when doing the new trilogy design. The FIrst Order Tie seems very close to the original tie size
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