Imperial TIE Fighter

Who can ever forget the first time they heard a TIE Fighter uuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrrriing it’s way across the screen? TIE (for Twin Ion Engine) Fighters were exceptionally cool in how they blew up, leading to a toy version with pop off wing panels. The model version, however, did not show up until the mid to late 1990s, at least 15 years after all the other major Star Wars kits from the first trilogy were released. I really appreciate AMT/Ertl for ruining my childhood, holding out on the one dang kit that was sure to be a blockbuster. These kits were AMT/Ertl’s last hurrah for original trilogy movie kits, and were quite simply excellent. As bad as “The Phantom Menace” was in some ways, the kits that came out of it (the Trade Federation Tank, Anakin’s podracer, etc) were pretty darned good. To me, the TIE Fighter is the kit that bridged the gap between the first generation of Star Wars (and Star Trek, for that matter) of questionable quality/tooling/fit and the later kits that were excellent for mass-produced sc-fi kits—just in time for AMT/Ertl to bail out of the business.

This model was built in the late 90s, and was nearly trivial to assemble with minor puttying to fill gaps. I’m not positive how this kit sculpt compares to the Return of the Jedi issued TIE Interceptor kit (also a pretty decent kit), or for that matter the FineMolds TIE Fighter. But, you get two in the box, so it’s a deal. The only challenge to this kit was masking the panels. If memory serves, I did the black first, masked the panels and the Intermediate Blue second. I had attached the panels to the body before the final color coat, which worked pretty well. What is interesting in these photos, all taken under the same basic lighting, is how dark or light Intermediate Blue appears depending on the view angle.

TIE Fighter Gallery