Star Wars Imperial TIE Fighter by Shunichi Makino - enlarged to 1/32 scale

[Revell-Fan]

A friend of mine is having his BD soon. He is a big Star Wars fan and I asked him on occasion what his favourite vehicle was. Of course he said, "X-Wing". Unfortunately I don't have the time to make one for him but I think (hope?) to finish a TIE fighter. I'll save the X-Wing for later but to make things consistent I wanted to ensure that both planes are the same scale. I chose 1/32 mainly because this is the "native" Viper model scale, not too small and not too big. The parts for the X may fit on the page without too much hazzle, too. So this TIE will be even larger than the biggest commercially available model kit.

First I compared the wing dimensions to the small 1/144 Bandai model. The data showed that Shunichi's kit is about 1/56. To my surprise UHU02's TIE Interceptor is almost the same scale. So I thought of using his interior in Shunichi's model. Then I enlarged the files accordingly and re-arranged everything for easy printing. In total there were 28 pages.

The only parts that had to be cut in two were the big wings pieces. Stay tuned for the first pics!

 

[mijob]

That's gone be a nice build.

 

[ennder]

can't wait to see what you do with this one thumbsup

 

[Rhaven Blaack]

I am very curious to see how this turns out!!!

 

[Revell-Fan]

The big wing parts were the ony ones which had to be splitted in two each. Right now it is only cutting and joining them together. To do so I'm laminating them to a big sheet of card. That gives a smooth finish and adds strength.

 

[starbuck]

Sounds very cool - 1/32 is my favourite scale. Are you allowed/going to publish the 1/32 Tie?

P.S. 1/32 Viper you would be allowed - is this also on your todo list?

 

[Revell-Fan]

No need to publish anything - the kits are readily available and can be upscaled easily. The only part that needs some thinking is the wing mount. On Shunichi's there is a cylinder going through the eye ball. I'll need to cut it in half and make a new mount that attaches to the interior sphere. If that doesn't work I'll have to skip the idea. We'll see.

The 1/32 Viper will come after the 2-seater was made.

 

[Revell-Fan]

Time for the first pics!

After the parts were printed I joined the big ones again.

To do so I laminated them to a big piece of grey cardboard.

The edges were painted with a grey marker and the frame parts were stacked to the wing.

The wing ribs are made accordingly and put aside. I laminated half of them to card, cut them apart and attached the back piece which was printed on regular paper. That way I beefed them up a bit without making them too thick.

The eyeball was cut out and assembled.

All parts were pre-shaped carefully.

I left it open for the time being to insert the interior.

 

[ASC Mclaren]

The "natural" scale of all models is 1:18. Everything else is just adulterated.

This looks great, too small but great.

 

[Rhaven Blaack]

You did a GREAT JOB with enlarging it! You are off to a great start! I am looking forward to seeing how it turns out!!!

 

[mijob]

Looking good. Are you gone to use the UHU02 Tie interior?

 

[Revell-Fan]

Yep!

I have noticed that the interior has a horizontal crease in the middle that corresponds exactly with the middle line of Shunichi's, so that will be my mark to mount the wings. They are already pretty heavy and I hope that everything works as planned. I'll reinforce the mount accordingly but if it does not work I'll have to stay with the traditional design without interior.

These are the parts needed for the interior:

I increased both kits by 75%. There is a small discrepancy but it is barely noticable. The first part to be built was the seat. I added some flaps because of the larger size.

The edges were painted with my new marker. I absolutely LOVE that thing!

Next was the interior sphere. It is a very complex shape and has to be assembled in sections.

First join the sides. Then attach the front.

The cockpit console is installed. I added some flaps here, too.

Don't pay too much attention at the glue spots, please. They have dried well and are transparent now.

Some greeblies.

And the steering wheel.

The seat was glued into place.

 

[Revell-Fan]

The interior sphere was closed.

A front cover was added. Please note the different folds: I attached the glue only at the front and the edges of the side pieces.

It is necessary to beef it up a bit to make it stay in the proper position. Hence I attached the bottom plate with the alignment marks.

The front plate was laminated to some card and attached accordingly.

And this is the state of the moment:

At the left you see what's left of the enlarged UHU plans. The parts are obsolete but I'll keep them till the end in case I need some textured pieces for cover up actions. In the middle you see a test assembly of the cockpit interior. And on the right you see the pile of parts that are finished and ready for the next steps. Stay tuned!

 

[mijob]

thats realy looking good. Smart to use the inner part off uhu's tie

 

[bigpetr]

Great - Star Wars stuff .
And pictures finaly . I would love to see it with some objects in the picture (hand for example) to better admire the size of it.

I am curiouse how you will solve the wing attachement to the body. I am looking forward to get ispired . As you wrote wing ara quite heavy. I thougt of some wire frame/circle inserted between outer shell and cockptit, but I was not sure if there would be enougth place for such a frame.

 

[Revell-Fan]

Sorry for the wait. I was suffering from a very nasty case of dizziness caused by a malfunction of my inner ear. I was unable to do anything and had to take a break for a few days. Things are back to normal now and I was able to continue the build. To save time I have concentrated my energy to building and skipped the postings - until now. Be prepared for a MASSIVE update. I'm editing the pictures now.

 

[Revell-Fan]

Alright, here we go!

First I started with the lower and upper cap.

The lower cap was straight forward:

The upper cap / pilot hatch experienced the first major change: clear windows.

The part was pre-shaped, the black areas were cut out and the formers attached.

I cut off all pieces that protruded the holes for the windows.

Then I eye-balled the length and width of the needed panels and cut them out of transparent sheet which formerly was a blister packaging. The panes were glued to the back side of the hatch.

Top hatch done.

 

[Revell-Fan]

Then I was thinking of the final appearance of the cockpit. The interior was designed as an empty sphere. There was absolutely nothing wrong with that but I thought would look a bit boring. So a pilot figure had to be made.

On Jedi Temple Archives I found a picture of the TIE Fighter Pilot figure from Hasbro that comes with the TIE fighter from the SOLO toy line. I have this toy (and it is gorgeous, BTW) but since mine is in storage I used the frontal shot Paul has taken.

I printed several units of it and laminated them to card.

Following an old tradition I cut off the lower legs of the figure to make mounting easier. :Grin:

Some beefed-up parts were added and the figure was bent into shape.

The bottom got a few layers of card to make it sit higher. Finally it was glued to the seat.

Due to the tight deadline I did not go overboard with the figure but I can imagine that someone with more time and patience could further improve the look of it. Nevertheless, having that little guy inside the cockpit adds so much to the overall appearance. And the way I did it I did not hide the fact that it was made of paper. This should be part of the appeal later.

 

[Revell-Fan]

Since I'll be adding windows you will be able to look at the inside of the cockpit ball. To avoid white spots I cut some grey card to pieces and glued them to the back side of the ball and the front of the interior frame.

To determine the size and shape of the facets of the interior I de-assembled the misprint of the interior I had built earlier and used some faces for tracing.

A first test fit showed that more areas needed to be covered with darkness. To speed up things I used my new marker and painted the inside.

There was no need to be exact since these areas would be seen only under EXTREMELY close inspection.

Done!

At least that was what I thought - until I noticed that I made a huge mistake! More on that later.

Note: The white circle was a left-over piece from Shunichis kit. My plan was to attach it to the bottom of the cockpit ball so that it keeps its shape better but I noticed that this was not necessary at all. The additional laminations already took care of that.

 

[Revell-Fan]

Now I dealt with the new wing mount.

The original kit gives us a tube that runs all the way through the cockpit sphere:

The middle piece had to be cut out - but how should this cut look like so that the arms would attach firmly to the interior frame?

Hmmm....

Class - Suggestions? Anyone?

None?

Alright, then I guess I'll have to come up with something myself.

Well then. There are two things to consider: The position of the cut in order not to let the arm tube stick out too much or too less and the shape of the cut so that the inner end of the arm touches the outer hull of the interior smoothly.

My first idea was to re-create both parts in SketchUp.

I imported UHU02's flattened plan and re-drew the shapes.

Since the whole thing was symmetrical I only needed to trace one half of it.

Then I used a series of circles to determine the cutting points and folded the parts virtually using the rotate tool.

This took way too long and FAILED MISERABLY.