First Order and Kylo Ren Tie Fighters

[Analyzer]

So there is the Bandai 1/72 Tie Fighters and the Revell "1/72" Kylo Ren Tie Fighter.
Recently however, the Revell site is listing the Kylo Ren Tie as 1/70

However, the pilot figure is clearly not 1/72, in fact, he is about the same size or maybe smaller than the Bandai "1/72" B-Wing pilot


It appears though he is correctly sized for the cockpit interior so


It appears like the exterior fits with the Bandai 1/72 stuff though (it is just dry fitted for now)


There are a few areas that need to be addressed. First is the hatch and the indent that makes it easy for kids to open it, then there is the totally inaccurate toy like hinge that needs to be removed.
Also the gun tips are kind of weak and being that rubbery plastic, the bend easy


In the meantime, I have finished the two First Order ties

And playing around with replacing the backgrounds

First Order Special Ops Tie Fighter

• Analyzer
• Jan 29, 2019

Bandai 1/72 First Order Special Ops Tie Fighter

First Order Tie Fighter

• Analyzer
• Jan 29, 2019

Bandai First Order Tie Fighter 1/72 scale

 

[korben44]

Ugh... why can't we get continuity across manufacturers! lol... Your Tie Fighters look great though...

 

[Galactican]

Great builds. I highly doubt Kylo's Fighter is 1/70. I suppose it is more 1/100 according to the pilot-pilot comparison.

 

[Jimmer]

Great work on your Ties.
I really always disliked the color of the wings/solar panels on the sequel Ties (not referring to your work Analyzer, I mean the choice of the movie design) and always considered adding a little darker wash to the panels to make the detailing stand out and darken them up a bit but not sure if it would be an improvement or just make them look dirty or "dingey", if that makes sense.
Anyone ever seen this done?

Edit: I typed this post, then realized I was "hijacking" your thread Analyzer. Very sorry, terrible etiquette on my part.
Again, excellent job on your fleet.
I only built the Special forces Tie, but you have me wanting to build Kylo's now.

 

[Analyzer]

Ugh... why can't we get continuity across manufacturers! lol... Your Tie Fighters look great though...

Great builds. I highly doubt Kylo's Fighter is 1/70. I suppose it is more 1/100 according to the pilot-pilot comparison.

thanks!

Yeah, it would be nice to have consistent scales, but I I guess it's close enough. It would be curious to see how Bandai sizes it if they ever release one

Great work on your Ties.
I really always disliked the color of the wings/solar panels on the sequel Ties (not referring to your work Analyzer, I mean the choice of the movie design) and always considered adding a little darker wash to the panels to make the detailing stand out and darken them up a bit but not sure if it would be an improvement or just make them look dirty or "dingey", if that makes sense.
Anyone ever seen this done?

Edit: I typed this post, then realized I was "hijacking" your thread Analyzer. Very sorry, terrible etiquette on my part.
Again, excellent job on your fleet.
I only built the Special forces Tie, but you have me wanting to build Kylo's now.

Thanks!

No worries at all, especially since it's about First Order Tie Fighters it's all on topic for me

I was not a fan of the color scheme originally either.

I did try to to darken the panels more, but they still look very light compared to the darker black of the tie's body. I also tried to give them a more silvery or metallic sheen, but it doesn't come out well in the photos

I considered painting the ties the original series grey, and I am still torn on whether to keep the grey color for Kylo Ren, or go with the more black seen in the movie.

I've been considering getting another pair and going with the grey scheme on those

In much of the concept art the ties were still the familiar grey, but someone got trigger happy with the Invert Colors function in their software. They did the same thing with Poe's X-Wing. Someone literally flipped the option to invert colors I guess when they decided they needed a way to make the hero X-wing different

 

[Jimmer]

I need to get that concept art book, didn't know they almost went grey with Ties in the film.

I too debated about painting my first order Tie grey, but even though I'm not crazy about the light panels I decided to keep it true to the film.

Thanks for the info.
On a side note, I built Poe's black X-wing and enjoyed it, but weathering it was a bit odd.
It's hard to get anything to show on the black, but his ship wasn't weathered much anyway so I settled for some light pastel streaking on the orange parts and grimed the engines.

 

[Richard Baker]

thanks!



I did try to to darken the panels more, but they still look very light compared to the darker black of the tie's body. I also tried to give them a more silvery or metallic sheen, but it doesn't come out well in the photos

I considered painting the ties the original series grey, and I am still torn on whether to keep the grey color for Kylo Ren, or go with the more black seen in the movie.

I've been considering getting another pair and going with the grey scheme on those

I painted the panel wings on my Special Forces TIE Metallic Steel with some individual sub-panels silver and aluminum. IMO it takes away a bit from the reversed color look and makes those solar collectors look like second generation units.

 

[Victor3]

Wow, in that color scheme, Kylo’s TIE really does look like the TIE Avenger from the PC game!

 

[Jimmer]

Richard, if you ever get time to post a pic I'd love to see that. Very original idea.

 

[Inquisitor Peregrinus]

I also am of the "add metallic effects to the ST TIE radiator panels" camp. Something in a flat aluminum or titanium looks pretty "off-white", but looks more... practicable, I guess is the best word.

As I've commented elsewhere, I also immediately saw the inspiration for the TIE Silencer in the original version of the TIE Advanced in the TIE Fighter PC game, before it went through a couple evolutions into the equally-cool TIE Avenger. My macro-project is to build what I like to call the "Sienar Fleet Systems Museum TIE Wing", starting with the Eta-2 Actis and the conceit SFS was given one and told to use it as inspiration, the result of which was the Inquisitor's TIE Advanced prototype seen in Rebels, with the folding wings and such. And going through the whole progression, sidebars, etc. Sentinel, Defender, Bomber, Shuttle, etc. Some are going to have to be converted/modded to make work. Some, there are aftermarket kits that can be tweaked to work (originally done for the FineMolds TIES). Some are going to need to be almost-completely scratch-built. But I am going to make a version of the Silencer that has less acute wing angles and the rear cutouts repeated in the front (and a few other changes) to be the TIE Advanced x2 that the First Order used as the basis to develop the Silencer from.

Love your work.

 

[Analyzer]

Wow, in that color scheme, Kylo’s TIE really does look like the TIE Avenger from the PC game!

Yeah, I really like the grey scheme. At Disney Launch bay they also had Kylo Rens shuttle painted in the grey as well. It is really tempting to go with the grey over the black

I painted the panel wings on my Special Forces TIE Metallic Steel with some individual sub-panels silver and aluminum. IMO it takes away a bit from the reversed color look and makes those solar collectors look like second generation units.

Richard, if you ever get time to post a pic I'd love to see that. Very original idea.

me too!

I definitely like to think of the panels more along the lines of a metallic color

I also am of the "add metallic effects to the ST TIE radiator panels" camp. Something in a flat aluminum or titanium looks pretty "off-white", but looks more... practicable, I guess is the best word.

As I've commented elsewhere, I also immediately saw the inspiration for the TIE Silencer in the original version of the TIE Advanced in the TIE Fighter PC game, before it went through a couple evolutions into the equally-cool TIE Avenger. My macro-project is to build what I like to call the "Sienar Fleet Systems Museum TIE Wing", starting with the Eta-2 [/i]Actis[/i] and the conceit SFS was given one and told to use it as inspiration, the result of which was the Inquisitor's TIE Advanced prototype seen in Rebels, with the folding wings and such. And going through the whole progression, sidebars, etc. Sentinel, Defender, Bomber, Shuttle, etc. Some are going to have to be converted/modded to make work. Some, there are aftermarket kits that can be tweaked to work (originally done for the FineMolds TIES). Some are going to need to be almost-completely scratch-built. But I am going to make a version of the Silencer that has less acute wing angles and the rear cutouts repeated in the front (and a few other changes) to be the TIE Advanced x2 that the First Order used as the basis to develop the Silencer from.

Love your work.

thanks for the kind words. The Tie museum concept sounds really cool. I really like the idea for the Tie Advanced 2x

 

[Inquisitor Peregrinus]

Oh! Also, regarding scales... I don't know where the "1:70" quoted scale for the Silencer comes from, but that's wrong. Going by the established size of the craft from production materials, Revell's model is about the same amount the other side of 1:72 -- 1:75 or so. But their pilot figure is underscaled for the rest of the proportions (and way too small to be 1:70!). I am doing all of mine as museum pieces, as I said, so no pilots (except standing "mannequins"), but if you wanted a better-scaled Kylo, I'd suggest getting the MicroMachines figure (or three) and doing some butchery to get him into the right pose for the cockpit (and also scavenging a 1:72 pilot seat from a Bandai fighter).

 

[Jimmer]

My macro-project is to build what I like to call the "Sienar Fleet Systems Museum TIE Wing", starting with the Eta-2

That's an awesome Idea. Hope you post pics when you get this going. I thought by this point I'd seen just about the full gambit of SW model building display ideas, but you've proven me wrong.

That could be an amazing shelf progression type display. (I started to type "depending on scale", but scale wouldn't matter at all, as long as you have the room).
Anyway, excellent idea.

 

[Analyzer]

Oh! Also, regarding scales... I don't know where the "1:70" quoted scale for the Silencer comes from, but that's wrong. Going by the established size of the craft from production materials, Revell's model is about the same amount the other side of 1:72 -- 1:75 or so. But their pilot figure is underscaled for the rest of the proportions (and way too small to be 1:70!). I am doing all of mine as museum pieces, as I said, so no pilots (except standing "mannequins"), but if you wanted a better-scaled Kylo, I'd suggest getting the MicroMachines figure (or three) and doing some butchery to get him into the right pose for the cockpit (and also scavenging a 1:72 pilot seat from a Bandai fighter).

The 1/70 actually comes from Revell's own product page

Revell | Kylo Ren's TIE Fighter

Although they used to list it as 1/72. They really are notoriously bad at scale listings. I swear that's why they just say screw it and stick with box scale

I had thought about using a micromachines Kylo Ren. I have on with helmet and one without.

You can see the huge size difference. And that Micromachines Kylo Ren is even small for 1/72 (I think in the 1/78 range maybe?)

I was going to make a copy of it and reposition one, but it looks like it won't fit in the cockpit.

I'm not sure if maybe the interior scale/configuration is out of whack with what it should be?

Maybe try lowering the floorboard area?

 

[Inquisitor Peregrinus]

Boy, I wish we had a making-of book or behind-the-scenes pics while filming those scenes so we could see the cockpit set. I dont have the UCS book for TLJ, so I can neither recommend or not recommend it as a resource, but maybe someone who does can compare it to the movie...?

I'm not a lot of help with the Silencer model yet, I'm afraid. Still waiting on my friend to mail it to me.

 

[Analyzer]

Going off this cross section, it looks like Revell actually has the proportions/sizing between pilot and cockpit pretty good but who knows what sizing tweaks may have happened after Revell got the assets to start making molds from vs when the movie was released.

After all Rian did change the design after seeing the Hasbro toy prototype

Rian Johnson changed Kylo Ren’s TIE Fighter to match the toy version for The Last Jedi

“Initially, the plan was to have missiles on the underside, and shoot them off, and that was it. But halfway through production Rian got a toy, a prototype toy of the Kylo fighter. And they had the missiles on the side wings! So we went and redesigned a bit of it [in the movie] so that we could open it up and pop them out. I’ve heard of the toys’ influence in the past, but that was the first time for me."

 

[Richard Baker]

Richard, if you ever get time to post a pic I'd love to see that. Very original idea.

The build is temporarily on hold until I finish my B-Wing build- grail kits trump all other projects.
Here is how the wing looks with that painting technique I described-

 

[Analyzer]

ooh..nice!

I may have to revisit the panels to get it even more metallic like that

 

[Jimmer]

The build is temporarily on hold until I finish my B-Wing build- grail kits trump all other projects.
Here is how the wing looks with that painting technique I described-
View attachment 989850

ooh..nice!

I may have to revisit the panels to get it even more metallic like that

I like that much more than the white.
Believe I'll borrow that idea as well.
Masking those panels will be a good exercise as well.
Great job.

 

[Richard Baker]

Thanks!
I didn't want to get too far away from the stock look but I really hated the reversed color look too.
At least this way in my mental canon I think of it as a new type of panel with higher efficiency, sort of like the diamond textured panels seen on the TIE/Interceptors