sbaxter
Sr Member
Greetings, all!
For those who don't want to read the following rambling deluge, what I am looking to do is combine the wings/solar panels of the Hasbro Vintage Collection TIE Fighter with the cockpit ball and arms of Hasbro's Solo: A Star Wars Story TIE. I'm posting this with photos partly because I figure someone else might want to try doing this (and some may have already had the same idea), and also because I am seeking insight on what to fix, modify and add, and on how to do that.
I saw the new(ish) Hasbro TIE Fighter, with the larger-scale solar panels/wings, several years ago when it was first offered as a Target exclusive. I know it has been re-released more than once since then, with an altered cockpit section, and is currently available at Walmart as an exclusive “Vintage Collection” release. I wasn’t able to snag one of the original Target versions, but I snatched-up one of the Walmart fighters for $79 plus tax a few weeks ago while still a little crazy and blind with Christmas money.
When I started looking at it, however, I noticed that there are a lot of weird — and flat-out wrong — things about this TIE Fighter. Many of them could be fixed — even by me — but others would be way beyond anything I think I could accomplish, at the level of it being just as “easy” to scratchbuild the parts in question. The most glaring of these issues is that the front canopy and possibly also the top hatch are proportionately too large, resulting in too little space around them to place anything close to iconic greeblies on the hull. So I got to poking around online, because I thought I had seen a Hasbro TIE that looked much better. I discovered that Hasbro had released a TIE Fighter in the line of toys they put out for Solo: A Star Wars Story. The solar panels (or “wings” — which is the preferred term these days, now that the panels being radiators is canon?) are undersized as is typical, but the cockpit section seems to be more accurate overall, with better proportions on most of its surface features. I had never seen the Solo TIE in stores, but I quickly found I could get one for about $20 from Amazon, with Prime shipping. So I did, gambling that the cockpit section would be the same overall size as the Vintage Collection’s TIE and I could graft the two together to get the Sort-Of Ultimate Hasbro TIE Theoretically For the Moment™. Yeah, I’m gonna trademark that name; unwieldy, but memorable!
I originally envisioned this thread as a request for opinions on whether I was making the right choice here, but in comparing the two cockpits sections, I don’t really need to do that. The Solo TIE is clearly better overall. As I mentioned in the previous paragraph, look at the space between the top of the front window and the forward edge of the hatch on the Vintage Collection TIE; it is way too compacted. There’s no way to even semi-accurately duplicate the greeblies that should be there. I think I will have to rebuild those whatever-they-ares anyway with the Solo TIE, and even at something close to the proper size, I expect it to drive me insane. That’s what usually happens when I try to create small parts like that, even if they are essentially just shapes cut from flat styrene.
What I’m doing here is a proof of concept and an open request for advice on what should be done, and (for the trickier stuff) how to do it. I’m also hoping that there are others here, much more talented and experienced than I am, who will see this and decide to do what I am trying to do — probably much better and more quickly than I will … and I’m surely not the first to come up with the idea. I just haven’t seen it referenced anywhere previously.Following are photos I made of the cockpit sections of both toys, with logos applied so anyone can tell at glance which is which (even though that is only needed once, strictly speaking, since the Solo TIE includes much more of the connecting arms to each side than the Vintage version). I also included an image of the Solo TIE with an equivalent view of one of the Empire-era TIE studio models I found online, after having matched the sizes as best I could so that everything lines up as much as possible. I shot these photos with my camera mounted on a tripod and pointed straight down, and the parts sitting a couple of feet below on a piece of foam board. I used a 50mm lens for minimal optical distortion. After I set focus for the first exposure, I locked the lens so the focus remained identical for all shots, and the parts were all placed in the same spot (more or less, given human error), the same distance from the lens (within an eighth of an inch variance, if that). All that to say that even though I photographed each piece separately and then combined them in Photoshop, the size relationship between them is exactly or extremely close to what the eye would see. And with that in mind, you can easily see that the two are essentially the same size, and there’s no reason the Solo TIE’s cockpit section can’t be married to the larger wings of the Vintage Collection TIE. So, I think as a basic proof of concept, it is a done deal.
Don’t get me wrong; both of these toys have numerous inaccuracies. One that bugs me a bit is the rear window and the circular housing around it -- everything within it is too shallow. I’m inclined to stick with the Solo version on that because it is closer on overall size, and crafting the parts necessary to correct its depth is something that I just have no idea how to do, and little confidence I could pull it off even if I did understand how it could be done. Lots of other greeblies hither and yon are just missing, even if many of them would be relatively easy to add. Some are eye-poppingly out of scale, too prominent, and/or just all wrong, and will just have to be “Dremel-led” away and rebuilt. I plan to soon post new versions of my images of the Solo TIE, marked-up with the things I’ve noticed. I will also try to make and post some photos of the toy in a disassembled state, because there are issues I am facing that have turned up upon taking it apart, and I’ll be seeking opinions on how to proceed.
Another issue is that this new TIE Fighter toy has taken the old “battle damage” toy feature to a new place. Rather than just having the panels pop off to represent being blown out of the sky, this one rips the cockpit area completely apart. As a result, there are prominent “cracks” in the ball that will have to be sealed, but it also means the surfaces there don’t come together flush as well. I’ll have to determine a way to fix that once I take it completely apart. There are also a couple of areas on the “ball” surface that are distorted out of being smoothly rounded for reasons I haven’t yet identified, and those will have to be sanded down to eliminate the problem.
I'm also considering whether I want to light this thing. It should be relatively simple to do so if I just do the engines. I’m not trying to make or represent a studio scale replica of a filming model, so I would not be inclined to light the guns. IF I can get the better interior from the Vintage TIE to fit inside the Solo TIE, I might consider lighting that. Might.
Sorry this is all so rambling — it accurately represents my thought processes in that respect. I’m still trying to look at this thing and figure out what needs to be done, what I think I actually can do, and anticipate the things that will go wrong and drive me insane before they come as a dispiriting surprise. I’m still trying to figure out how much I know and, more importantly, what I don’t know. Actually re-building this thing is something that will take me some time; I don’t have a dedicated place to work, nor am I allowed much time to do so. So to anyone interested, please be patient.
SSB
For those who don't want to read the following rambling deluge, what I am looking to do is combine the wings/solar panels of the Hasbro Vintage Collection TIE Fighter with the cockpit ball and arms of Hasbro's Solo: A Star Wars Story TIE. I'm posting this with photos partly because I figure someone else might want to try doing this (and some may have already had the same idea), and also because I am seeking insight on what to fix, modify and add, and on how to do that.
I saw the new(ish) Hasbro TIE Fighter, with the larger-scale solar panels/wings, several years ago when it was first offered as a Target exclusive. I know it has been re-released more than once since then, with an altered cockpit section, and is currently available at Walmart as an exclusive “Vintage Collection” release. I wasn’t able to snag one of the original Target versions, but I snatched-up one of the Walmart fighters for $79 plus tax a few weeks ago while still a little crazy and blind with Christmas money.
When I started looking at it, however, I noticed that there are a lot of weird — and flat-out wrong — things about this TIE Fighter. Many of them could be fixed — even by me — but others would be way beyond anything I think I could accomplish, at the level of it being just as “easy” to scratchbuild the parts in question. The most glaring of these issues is that the front canopy and possibly also the top hatch are proportionately too large, resulting in too little space around them to place anything close to iconic greeblies on the hull. So I got to poking around online, because I thought I had seen a Hasbro TIE that looked much better. I discovered that Hasbro had released a TIE Fighter in the line of toys they put out for Solo: A Star Wars Story. The solar panels (or “wings” — which is the preferred term these days, now that the panels being radiators is canon?) are undersized as is typical, but the cockpit section seems to be more accurate overall, with better proportions on most of its surface features. I had never seen the Solo TIE in stores, but I quickly found I could get one for about $20 from Amazon, with Prime shipping. So I did, gambling that the cockpit section would be the same overall size as the Vintage Collection’s TIE and I could graft the two together to get the Sort-Of Ultimate Hasbro TIE Theoretically For the Moment™. Yeah, I’m gonna trademark that name; unwieldy, but memorable!
I originally envisioned this thread as a request for opinions on whether I was making the right choice here, but in comparing the two cockpits sections, I don’t really need to do that. The Solo TIE is clearly better overall. As I mentioned in the previous paragraph, look at the space between the top of the front window and the forward edge of the hatch on the Vintage Collection TIE; it is way too compacted. There’s no way to even semi-accurately duplicate the greeblies that should be there. I think I will have to rebuild those whatever-they-ares anyway with the Solo TIE, and even at something close to the proper size, I expect it to drive me insane. That’s what usually happens when I try to create small parts like that, even if they are essentially just shapes cut from flat styrene.
What I’m doing here is a proof of concept and an open request for advice on what should be done, and (for the trickier stuff) how to do it. I’m also hoping that there are others here, much more talented and experienced than I am, who will see this and decide to do what I am trying to do — probably much better and more quickly than I will … and I’m surely not the first to come up with the idea. I just haven’t seen it referenced anywhere previously.Following are photos I made of the cockpit sections of both toys, with logos applied so anyone can tell at glance which is which (even though that is only needed once, strictly speaking, since the Solo TIE includes much more of the connecting arms to each side than the Vintage version). I also included an image of the Solo TIE with an equivalent view of one of the Empire-era TIE studio models I found online, after having matched the sizes as best I could so that everything lines up as much as possible. I shot these photos with my camera mounted on a tripod and pointed straight down, and the parts sitting a couple of feet below on a piece of foam board. I used a 50mm lens for minimal optical distortion. After I set focus for the first exposure, I locked the lens so the focus remained identical for all shots, and the parts were all placed in the same spot (more or less, given human error), the same distance from the lens (within an eighth of an inch variance, if that). All that to say that even though I photographed each piece separately and then combined them in Photoshop, the size relationship between them is exactly or extremely close to what the eye would see. And with that in mind, you can easily see that the two are essentially the same size, and there’s no reason the Solo TIE’s cockpit section can’t be married to the larger wings of the Vintage Collection TIE. So, I think as a basic proof of concept, it is a done deal.
Don’t get me wrong; both of these toys have numerous inaccuracies. One that bugs me a bit is the rear window and the circular housing around it -- everything within it is too shallow. I’m inclined to stick with the Solo version on that because it is closer on overall size, and crafting the parts necessary to correct its depth is something that I just have no idea how to do, and little confidence I could pull it off even if I did understand how it could be done. Lots of other greeblies hither and yon are just missing, even if many of them would be relatively easy to add. Some are eye-poppingly out of scale, too prominent, and/or just all wrong, and will just have to be “Dremel-led” away and rebuilt. I plan to soon post new versions of my images of the Solo TIE, marked-up with the things I’ve noticed. I will also try to make and post some photos of the toy in a disassembled state, because there are issues I am facing that have turned up upon taking it apart, and I’ll be seeking opinions on how to proceed.
Another issue is that this new TIE Fighter toy has taken the old “battle damage” toy feature to a new place. Rather than just having the panels pop off to represent being blown out of the sky, this one rips the cockpit area completely apart. As a result, there are prominent “cracks” in the ball that will have to be sealed, but it also means the surfaces there don’t come together flush as well. I’ll have to determine a way to fix that once I take it completely apart. There are also a couple of areas on the “ball” surface that are distorted out of being smoothly rounded for reasons I haven’t yet identified, and those will have to be sanded down to eliminate the problem.
I'm also considering whether I want to light this thing. It should be relatively simple to do so if I just do the engines. I’m not trying to make or represent a studio scale replica of a filming model, so I would not be inclined to light the guns. IF I can get the better interior from the Vintage TIE to fit inside the Solo TIE, I might consider lighting that. Might.
Sorry this is all so rambling — it accurately represents my thought processes in that respect. I’m still trying to look at this thing and figure out what needs to be done, what I think I actually can do, and anticipate the things that will go wrong and drive me insane before they come as a dispiriting surprise. I’m still trying to figure out how much I know and, more importantly, what I don’t know. Actually re-building this thing is something that will take me some time; I don’t have a dedicated place to work, nor am I allowed much time to do so. So to anyone interested, please be patient.
SSB
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