Week 5 Pt.2 - TIE Defender

For my third and final model, I decided to create a TIE Defender. While I have already created a TIE model - the Phantom - the Defender is different enough visually that it is suitable as my third model. It also provides a handy narrative idea for the 30-second animation I must produce later on, as the Y-Wing I finished earlier in the week could be being pursued by the two TIE fighters.

As with the other two models I have made so far, the Defender's basic chassis is fairly easy to model. The cockpit consists of a single sphere, with a large triangular section at the rear to which its three wings are attached.

Fig.1: The basic chassis of the TIE Defender. The sphere is angled at 90 degrees to make texturing the windscreen easier.

On the end of each tip of the triangle is a wing mount. This consists of a cylinder that gets dramatically wider at the end, where it attaches to the wings. To save polygons, this will be made from a single cylinder, divided into two sections.

Fig.2: The chassis with the wing mounts added.

The next step is to assemble the Defender's three wings. These are rather more complex than the Phantom's. The first step is the base plate, which attaches to the wing mounts. On top of this is a small domed structure; this is drawn directly on by making the base plate a live surface.

Fig.3: The base plate with added hatch

As with the TIE Phantom, the main part of the wing can be produced from a single thin cuboid, however unlike the Phantom, each wing has two, attached to either side of the baseplate at an angle. After working out the angle with trigonometry (I won't go into that here), I crafted the wing, added additional details, then duplicated it onto the other side of the base plate.

Fig.4: The completed wing with extra details. You will notice that unlike my other untextured models, here I have textured the wing interior for clarity purposes.

Fig,5: The finished wing assembly, with a wing either side of the wing mount

Having finished the wing, I can now duplicate it and mount it onto each of the wing mounts.

Fig.6: The ship, complete with mounted wings

The ship is not quite finished yet. Attached to the rear is a hollow cylindrical object that houses the engine. This will be constructed from a single pipe object, split vertically into two sections.

Fig.7: The engine element

Fig.8: The ship from the rear, with the engine element added

All three of my ships are now essentially complete. I will spend the last week of the assignment texturing them and adding various miscellaneous details, because storyboarding the 30-second animation that will feature them.