How Accurate is the Nice-N Tie Fighter?

[Baruopa]

Heard a lot of good things about Nice-N models. It's my understanding that they're about as top-of-the-line as it gets in terms of accuracy. I do know, however, that there have been some revisions over the years. Just wondering what all those are and what. If any modifications would need to be made to the Tie kit he currently sells to make it 100% ILM accurate.
Thank you.

 

[vectorzero]

The key issue with the Nice-N is the diameter of the cockpit ball. It's slightly too small. The later TIE X-1 kit is (I believe) the correct diameter. Two shots below show the ball compared to the X-1, and one which probably makes it clearer is the difference in size between the cockpit window frames.

The wingstars look good, but probably the biggest challenge is to get a realistic looking Koolshade effect. Given the wings are huge, this is the area where you need to put in a lot of effort with the kit. When I bought mine I opted for just the naked wing stars and managed to get some real Koolshade to get the authentic look. The engineering of the wings was complex, but well worth it. The Nice-N is a great model, and you'll be happy with the results. If you want studio accurate, then it will be a lot of work due to some core dimensions being off.

All that said, of my collection the TIE is my favourite one.

 

[Baruopa]

The key issue with the Nice-N is the diameter of the cockpit ball. It's slightly too small. The later TIE X-1 kit is (I believe) the correct diameter. Two shots below show the ball compared to the X-1, and one which probably makes it clearer is the difference in size between the cockpit window frames.

View attachment 1494229
View attachment 1494230

The wingstars look good, but probably the biggest challenge is to get a realistic looking Koolshade effect. Given the wings are huge, this is the area where you need to put in a lot of effort with the kit. When I bought mine I opted for just the naked wing stars and managed to get some real Koolshade to get the authentic look. The engineering of the wings was complex, but well worth it. The Nice-N is a great model, and you'll be happy with the results. If you want studio accurate, then it will be a lot of work due to some core dimensions being off.

All that said, of my collection the TIE is my favourite one.

View attachment 1494231

Would you mind telling what year your Tie is from? I see he's done revisions, and it almost seems silly for him to continue producing the incorrect ball size if he's got the proper one on hand for the Tie Advanced.
They are the same part, right? That is to say if someone were to switch the cockpits of the two IRL props, they'd still be virtually identical? I wonder if someone could Frankenstein his X1 and Tie kits together to make an accurate kit. Are the arms that connect the ball to the wings also out of scale then?
All that being said, is the Nice-N kit still the most accurate kit available right now?

Thanks for the reply mate, and beautiful work on your models by the way.

 

[vectorzero]

I bought the TIE and TIE X-1 in January 2018.

The TIE X-1 is a completely different model than the TIE, and I believe is a casting from a 3D printed master made by a different artist. There's no way to mix and match parts based on my knowledge of the two kits - unless you undertook some major surgery and an alteration of the armature. I wouldn't be overly confident that major changes get rolled out on a regular basis to garage kits. Runs are limited, profit margins small, so constantly increasing the cost base doesn't often happen in my experience.

You can see the construction of the TIE X-1 here and some of the construction of the TIE wings here to give you any idea of what goes on.

From my conversations with Steve about the TIE at the time of purchase, there were new resin wings being made incorporating a koolshade pattern. However, the casting of those wings was proving problematic. I only wanted the wing stars so we could construct wings with actual koolshade so this wasn't an issue for me. So my source model is a combination of older wing stars plus whatever cockpit and spars were in stock at the time.

You would need to contact Steve for any changes since the start of 2018. In order to get a consistent ball size IMO the cockpit at least would need to be remastered.

No idea if there is a more accurate kit out there. I'm super satisfied with mine irrespective of its flaws, so not tempted to look for alternatives.