Star Wars Custom TIE fighter MOC - Upgraded 181st Interceptor

[Chris Hastings]

Hello all!

I thought it was about time I posted one of my MOC's. It's not my best and could use more accurately coloured parts but I did the best with that I had to hand.

I know its not as professional as some of the amazing stuff being posted here, but I always try to build within the realm of 'would lego actually make this'. That is to say, all or at least most of my MOC's are made to fit in with my official Lego sets. I used to make ones that were more highly detailed etc but they didn't really fit in with any of my collection. That said, I don't limit myself to the stringent rules that Lego designers have to go by.

Here is my custom creation, a Star Wars TIE fighter based on the 181st TIE Interceptors from one of the old Star Wars comic books 'In the Empires Service' which was part of the X-wing Rogue Squadron story collection.



It has upgraded TIE engines, added winglets and a hyperdrive, which TIE's don't normally have.



I made this little base to go with it because the wings are attached by ball joints so if the ship is set down it just sort of slowly flumps ungracefully to the ground.



Obligatory 360 shots.



Custom minifig of me in costume standing to attention.



Features a fully furnished cockpit area which is more than we normally get from official lego TIE's.



Unlike other TIE's though unfortunately the window has to open downwards instead of being a screen accurate top hatch, or even like the old models which hinged upwards. I couldn't find the right peices I needed to do it without compromising the roundness of the main fuselage so I just had to roll with it. It doesn't make a difference to the external view, it just makes getting into the thing a bit of an effort for the minifig especially since he has no ladder.



Easy enough when you have a full sized human for assistance though..



Obligatory 'swoosh' shot.



Top shot.



Finally I will close with this shot of it sitting beside my other favourite TIE lego set, the recent release FO/sf TIE. I think it scales quite well with the official set.The fuselage for the First Order TIE is larger by a small % but thats because it seats two whereas my Interceptor only has room for a lone pilot.



One final bonus encore image, here is a pic of me in costume pretending to fly this thing while on a recent Star Wars Battlefront game night at Queens University. :)

I hope you enjoy, please feel free to leave comments/critisisms below. I will deffo be updating this ship whenever I can be bothered putting a list of parts together that I need and doing a bricklink order but in the meantime I feel like I did the best with what was available.

[Chris Hastings]

oh no the pics didn't work! :(

Edit: I got the pics to link and the bottom one works fine but does anyone have any idea why the others are so massive?

[hre1d]

Hi Chris,

Excellent MOC, really like that!

I see your using imgur for your images.  If you edit the URL path to your image, by including one of the letters below before the '.jpg', it will resize accordingly.

s = Small Square (90×90)
b = Big Square (160×160)
t = Small Thumbnail (160×160)
m = Thumbnail (320×320)
l = Thumbnail (640×640)
h = Thumbnail (1024×1024)

For example, if you want one of your images to be 640 pixels wide, your URL will be:

https://i.imgur.com/oi55lDXl.jpg

Result below:



Hope this helps! ;-)

[David]

If you edit the URL path to your image, by including one of the letters below before the '.jpg', it will resize accordingly.

This is a great help hre1d.

Chris, I have taken the liberty and modified those images so they should be displaying correctly now so others can see this great build.

[Chris Hastings]

Hi Chris,

Excellent MOC, really like that!

I see your using imgur for your images.  If you edit the URL path to your image, by including one of the letters below before the '.jpg', it will resize accordingly.

s = Small Square (90×90)
b = Big Square (160×160)
t = Small Thumbnail (160×160)
m = Thumbnail (320×320)
l = Thumbnail (640×640)
h = Thumbnail (1024×1024)

For example, if you want one of your images to be 640 pixels wide, your URL will be:

https://i.imgur.com/oi55lDXl.jpg

Result below:



Hope this helps! ;-)

Thank you very much that is a great help!

Yes I use imgur as it is the easiest way to upload the pics to from my mobile and then copy the links from when I go on my laptop.

[Chris Hastings]

If you edit the URL path to your image, by including one of the letters below before the '.jpg', it will resize accordingly.

This is a great help hre1d.

Chris, I have taken the liberty and modified those images so they should be displaying correctly now so others can see this great build.

Thank you very much! :)

[Spudh]

Great job on that Tie fighter, looks great!

I actually really like your cabin access, very neat solution.

[John]

Love the uniform ,a stormtrooper won a Halloween dress up at a kids play area last year ,my mission is to get a Vader one,b but the trooper was sweatin bucket loads, also he was plagued by kids,  also Love the build ,the Emperor would approve You have impressed me for another time

[Chris Hastings]

Digging this TIE. The cockpit door opening like that looks an easier way to get the figure in and out. One thing I miss when building Lego now is younger me's smaller fingers.

thanks! I know little fingers always have an easier time getting figs in and out of seats lol. All of my custom models are based on playability as well as looks because I need to be able to get figs in and out of them haha. I know its completely inaccurate to the '''''real''''' TIE which opens from the top but the whole front opening down makes it a billion times easier to get at the figure!

I might try this model again some time and extend the back section slightly for reinforcement so that I can indeed open it from the top and not compromise hull integrity haha.