Round2 Acquires Star Wars License

[JeffBond]

while you’re telling him not to be defensive, your original post stated as fact that the model proportions were wrong and based on the Rogue One TIEs. When he pointed out the facts of how the kit was actually developed, you then state that your original statement was outright wrong…while calling him defensive.

 

[star-art]

while you’re telling him not to be defensive, your original post stated as fact that the model proportions were wrong and based on the Rogue One TIEs. When he pointed out the facts of how the kit was actually developed, you then state that your original statement was outright wrong…while calling him defensive.

Thank you, Jeff! As you say, I was just stating the facts.

I guess I can't complain about "rivet counters" since I tend to be one of them! LOL I just want everyone to know we went to tremendous effort to get this right. And it wasn't just me. There was a small group of people involved and many of them have a great deal of expertise regarding this subject.

Are the greebles between the ANH and RotJ TIE Fighter different? There are some significant differences between the Round 2 model and the photos I have of the RotJ miniature, but I have no photos of the ANH miniature so I have no idea if they built new ones for the sequels that have slight differences or if Round 2 simplified the work you did for some reason.

I'm not familiar at all with TIE fighter models built for Return of the Jedi. My primary reference was the miniature with the damaged wing (filmed as Vader's wingman -- "Look out!" -- in the trench sequence). That model is easy to distinguish in reference photos and it was 100% confirmed to be screen used in the 1977 film.

I do know models made for ESB were basically the same except that the perimeter of the wings was constructed differently. As for ROTJ, like I said I don't know, but if you've spotted any differences in the greeblies I'd definitely be interested to see that. The TIE Interceptor models were supposedly made (I'm told) using regular TIE fighter bodies as well. There might be greeblie differences there as well. I did notice that the upper hatch appears to be too small, meaning it suffered from generational shrinkage in the molding process.

 

[edge10]

Just curious, what do you make of this one, with the black cockpit frame and shorter guns?

TIE Fighter Studio Model

Photos taken by a yet to be identified person at one of the Star Wars Exhibitions, I found these to be quite good of the Imperial TIE Fighter Studio Model. Nice and close for details!

modelermagic.com

I tried to upload one, but The RPF doesn't want to play along.

 

[anamorphicWayne]

1/32 Tie

Pretty close... I would say about 4 1/4 inches.

Hmmm, more like 3-3/4"
Is there a way to verify that?

 

[star-art]

Just curious, what do you make of this one, with the black cockpit frame and shorter guns?

TIE Fighter Studio Model

Photos taken by a yet to be identified person at one of the Star Wars Exhibitions, I found these to be quite good of the Imperial TIE Fighter Studio Model. Nice and close for details!

modelermagic.com

I tried to upload one, but The RPF doesn't want to play along.

I would guess that's from Return of the Jedi. It has the "shrunken" top hatch I noted on some TIE Interceptor models.

It also looks like what I call the "modesty panel" just inside the cockpit canopy is nearly flat across. That might explain why all the existing replicas out there mimic this setup. That detail was actually made up of three separate cast parts that were assembled together for each ship. In the first film, the side panels were angled back more. That's how I recreated it for the new AMT kit.

 

[Millenniumf]

I'm not familiar at all with TIE fighter models built for Return of the Jedi. My primary reference was the miniature with the damaged wing (filmed as Vader's wingman -- "Look out!" -- in the trench sequence). That model is easy to distinguish in reference photos and it was 100% confirmed to be screen used in the 1977 film.

I do know models made for ESB were basically the same except that the perimeter of the wings was constructed differently. As for ROTJ, like I said I don't know, but if you've spotted any differences in the greeblies I'd definitely be interested to see that. The TIE Interceptor models were supposedly made (I'm told) using regular TIE fighter bodies as well. There might be greeblie differences there as well. I did notice that the upper hatch appears to be too small, meaning it suffered from generational shrinkage in the molding process.

I'll definitely need to find some refs of that whenever I build this model kit.

As for the RotJ TIE Fighter, here's a pic of the miniature that goes on tour:

The tank tread details around the cockpit hatch are different pieces than the model you referenced, as they have a ridge in the middle and four links instead of three (one of them was filed on the edges and is nearest to the hatch). The boxy protrustion on the "forehead" doesn't have a hole (ejector pin mark?) in the middle and has hinges on the side, probably a hatch cover on a tank. There are also two small "L"-shaped greebles that flank the boxy protrusion that have holes in the top that are missing in the Round 2 kit. There are probably more examples besides that around the model, but these are the ones that stuck out to me, and I kind of want to buy two of these kits and convert one to a RotJ TIE Fighter having talked about this.

I definitely believe the TIE Interceptor was made from the same molds as the TIE Fighter, as the two examples in the photo set I have are basically identical.

I'm not faulting your research at all, btw! I'd rather you go off an ANH model for a model kit that is supposed to be an ANH TIE Fighter, and it's reassuring to know you specifically referenced a model from that movie. I really appreciate your work! Sorry for assuming they used the CG asset for Rogue One; it's an easy assumption to make since it's a common thing in model manufacturing these days.

 

[star-art]

The tank tread details around the cockpit hatch are different pieces than the model you referenced, as they have a ridge in the middle and four links instead of three (one of them was filed on the edges and is nearest to the hatch). The boxy protrustion on the "forehead" doesn't have a hole (ejector pin mark?) in the middle and has hinges on the side, probably a hatch cover on a tank. There are also two small "L"-shaped greebles that flank the boxy protrusion that have holes in the top that are missing in the Round 2 kit. There are probably more examples besides that around the model, but these are the ones that stuck out to me, and I kind of want to buy two of these kits and convert one to a RotJ TIE Fighter having talked about this.

I definitely believe the TIE Interceptor was made from the same molds as the TIE Fighter, as the two examples in the photo set I have are basically identical.

I'm not faulting your research at all, btw! I'd rather you go off an ANH model for a model kit that is supposed to be an ANH TIE Fighter, and it's reassuring to know you specifically referenced a model from that movie. I really appreciate your work! Sorry for assuming they used the CG asset for Rogue One; it's an easy assumption to make since it's a common thing in model manufacturing these days.

No worries! I'm thankful for someone pointing those out as I have never studied that particular Jedi model.

As for the details you mentioned:

• The tank treads at the top appear to have been replaced with new details. I'm guessing these were malformed or otherwise damaged in the original ANH mold.
• The hole in the "forehead" piece was apparently filled in for Jedi castings.
• The little parts on either side of that "forehead" piece were indeed modeled by me with holes. Apparently there was a limitation in the molding process so they filled these in. BUT, if you look closely, they did provide tiny little circle indicator marks so you can drill them out yourself.

If you spot anything else, please let me know. Thanks!

 

[Millenniumf]

No worries! I'm thankful for someone pointing those out as I have never studied that particular Jedi model.

As for the details you mentioned:

• The tank treads at the top appear to have been replaced with new details. I'm guessing these were malformed or otherwise damaged in the original ANH mold.
• The hole in the "forehead" piece was apparently filled in for Jedi castings.
• The little parts on either side of that "forehead" piece were indeed modeled by me with holes. Apparently there was a limitation in the molding process so they filled these in. BUT, if you look closely, they did provide tiny little circle indicator marks so you can drill them out yourself.

If you spot anything else, please let me know. Thanks!

No problem! Like I said, I'm definitely picking up two of these because I want a RotJ version (because yes, I am that picky I'd get a whole other giant TIE just to have both versions that 99.9% of people wouldn't be able to tell the difference between other than "black windscreen"), so if I ever start the build thread for that, I'll definitely document every difference I find.

Also, nice that the L-shaped parts have marks to drill the holes! I was honestly curious if the original parts actually had no holes, but that'll make it easy to add them.

It's really awesome to know someone as picky as me about the details worked on this! And because of that, I am really hoping that an Interceptor kit is in the works...

 

[ggriffaw]

How was the design of the interior and pilot handled? I believe the sightline of the original pilot was higher that the pilot in the new AMT kit to more closely match the full size interior set. Wasn't a 1/24 pilot used on the original model?

 

[star-art]

Well, that's a long story. This was certainly a special challenge all its own. As is so often the case, the exterior of the ship (as represented by the filming miniatures) doesn’t line up with the interior very well. In fact, the cockpit details on the filming models don’t even resemble the interior set built for the film. For example, there was no "modesty panel" behind the cockpit window in the set. Instead, in certain scenes nearly the entire window area was visible.

Before now, only Bandai had attempted to create a truly accurate looking cockpit. As good as their effort was, however, it still wasn’t an exact match to what we saw on screen.

The figure used in the filming models was a 1/24 fighter pilot. I started with a scan of this, sized as accurately as possible (I was recreating everything at the exact same size as the filming miniature and it would all get scaled down later), then I built a miniature recreation of the cockpit interior set around it. The biggest problem was the fact the pilot’s head in the movie is not very far below the inside of the top hatch. This would have put his face way up at the top of the cockpit opening.

I did the best I could to make it work. In doing so, I had no choice but to lower the inside of the top hatch, making it much thicker overall than it was intended to be in the film. Even then, the pilot still sat too high up in the cockpit. His line of sight wasn’t straight out the window at all but rather angled down quite a bit.

Round2 wasn’t happy with this but there really was no easy fix. While my design did meet the goal of being authentic to the interior set, it didn’t fit into the exterior quite the way everyone might expect. As a result, they decided to enlarge both the pilot and the interior cockpit shell so the line of sight of the pilot could be lowered.

In the end, I think this was a very fair compromise. The pilot might now be a bit bigger than true 1/32 scale, but IMO everything looks very authentic and accurate overall.

They also had to eliminate a lot of details that I had recreated inside the cockpit. This was necessary in order to meet budget requirements for the tooling.

BTW, I want to thank Israel Melendez (“IzzyMel”) for his extensive research and efforts to accurately recreate many of the parts that were used to detail the interior sets for the film. It was thanks to Izzy that the detailing of our final cockpit ended up being so authentic. He actually modeled in CAD the complex control column that goes at the front of the cockpit. Along with several others, he also provided invaluable reference for many of the other interior details including the pilot seat. This, it turns out, had been repurposed from the Millennium Falcon gun bay set!

 

[star-art]

These WIP images show the effort I went through trying to get the interior to match what we saw on screen. This represents what I modeled in CAD which is a bit different than what ended up being manufactured with the kit.

Note how I worked with a "stand-in" pilot figure matching the one used in the filming miniatures. This would eventually be replaced with a custom figure created by the folks at Round2.

 

[ggriffaw]

Thanks for the info about the interior. I'm a little confused. The original model had the sightline of the pilot higher than the live action set, so the solution was to make the pilot larger? Wouldn't that make the sightline even higher?

It sounds like the dimensions of the wings were used to scale between the original model deemed as 1/24 and the 1/32 scale. If the pilot size is altered to be larger than the original pilot which was too large, I would think the pilot will be out of scale with the pilot in any future non-TIE AMT 1/32 scale models. Hopefully there will be a 1/32 X-Wing at some point.

 

[Robert McLain]

Haze grey with my own mix of Model master Light Ghost Grey and Black for the cockpit interior and window framing. This kit is amazing! Fit is perfect and I love the way the wings go together. I added the holes to the pieces above the cockpit window and mounted the little triangle piece directly to the framing.

 

[Robert McLain]

Wings in place. The fit is good enough so that gluing is optional. I still need to

mix up a shade of grey for the hatch details and those doohickeys on each side of the cockpit window lol

 

[star-art]

Looking good!

Thanks for the info about the interior. I'm a little confused. The original model had the sightline of the pilot higher than the live action set, so the solution was to make the pilot larger? Wouldn't that make the sightline even higher?

It sounds like the dimensions of the wings were used to scale between the original model deemed as 1/24 and the 1/32 scale. If the pilot size is altered to be larger than the original pilot which was too large, I would think the pilot will be out of scale with the pilot in any future non-TIE AMT 1/32 scale models. Hopefully there will be a 1/32 X-Wing at some point.

Sorry for the confusion. In my description of the process it seems I left out one important step! When I started recreating this subject in CAD, I made everything the exact same size as the filming miniature. According to Lucasfilm, that's 1/24 scale. When I was completely done, I shrunk everything down to 75%. That yielded a finished model that was 1/32 scale.

As for the pilot figure getting scaled up, it wasn't by a huge amount. The scaling was done "upside down" i.e. with the top of the cockpit fixed in place where it was so that the bottom moved down. This shifted the pilot down with it. The figure is seated, so measuring can be a bit tricky. My best guess though is that if it were standing, the figure might now be 6' 5" tall (sans helmet). So yeah, that's definitely a "little big for a stormtrooper." LOL With the helmet on, it’s about the size of Darth Vader at 1/32 scale.

 

[Millenniumf]

Hey, at least with the pilot seated it's harder to tell he's too big.

 

[greeble_gremlin]

You did an excellent job mastering this kit. Well done!

SB

the MPC Vader TIE is not true 1/32... not if you consider the ANH TIE fighters with their 5-1/4" Spheres to be 1/24

Charles Adams and I where geared up and ready to provide Round-2 with what they need too make an accurate X-1 TIE and TIE interceptor but Round-2 screwed us royally not holding up their end of the "gentlemen's agreement" for our work and contributions
I am still waiting on the kits that we were promised when apparently they have been sending out advance shipments to plenty of folks as can be seen by several Youtube videos

 

[greeble_gremlin]

I think this is good news. Round 2 seems to listen to the fans. I'm thinking that repops with minor improvements would be the start.

TazMan2000

nevermind ; forget my previous reply.. I hope you are right and that they may continue to care about what the fans may want

 

[TazMan2000]

nevermind

Uhhh....Don't worry about it.

TazMan2000

 

[edge10]

the MPC Vader TIE is not true 1/32... not if you consider the ANH TIE fighters with their 5-1/4" Spheres to be 1/24

Charles Adams and I where geared up and ready to provide Round-2 with what they need too make an accurate X-1 TIE and TIE interceptor but Round-2 screwed us royally not holding up their end of the "gentlemen's agreement" for our work and contributions
I am still waiting on the kits that we were promised when apparently they have been sending out advance shipments to plenty of folks as can be seen by several Youtube videos

Hopefully they will do the right thing by you guys.