This one was for a commission.

TIE Defender Repaint by Jay Adan, on Flickr

I have to say that I was never really sold on the idea of repainting TIE fighters until I completed this one. I mean aside from doing things like the cloaking effect I didn't think that repainting TIEs in a similar color scheme would necessarily improve them much. I've now changed my mind and look forward to doing more TIE repaints.

That's a **** nice Defender. One minor niggle, which is that the thing on the back isn't an engine. The engine "exhausts" on TIEs look like little red dots.

Really good! Like the metallic glow on them. I was affraid you made a red royal guard version which might work, but would just take away from the defender in my opinion. This however is only improvement on an already great model

That's a **** nice Defender. One minor niggle, which is that the thing on the back isn't an engine. The engine "exhausts" on TIEs look like little red dots.

Ah, but for people thinking the same, thats not an exhaust, but pimp, like this:

Another good repaint! I agree with TIE pilot that the 'engine' glow is incorrectly placed but it looks so good that I'm willing to ignore that minor niggle.

That's a **** nice Defender. One minor niggle, which is that the thing on the back isn't an engine. The engine "exhausts" on TIEs look like little red dots.

I do what my clients ask.

Incorrectly placed? They would be glowing out of that back port, would they not?

Well there is one saving grace to that engine thing.

While technically improper, they have been depicted like this before.

Yeah, it seems unclear overall. I'm sure that there are some tech plans out there somewhere that indicate engine placement, but there's more art reference with a glow in that spot.

I think it looks awesome.

FYI - I hope nobody takes my responses as being defensive. I was just surprised. I don't consider myself to be an expert on these things in any way, but I do try to do my research before painting these things. There certainly isn't a plethora of reference on the EU ships so I just go with what I see. I don't doubt that in "reality" the ships should have red glowy points somewhere on the back. I've just never seen a piece of art that indicates that (just a few Lego ships modeled that way).

That's a **** nice Defender. One minor niggle, which is that the thing on the back isn't an engine. The engine "exhausts" on TIEs look like little red dots.

No, that really is the engine, at least it was in Tie Fighter the computer game.

Yes, that is an amazing looking re-paint! Now my defenders are jealous!!!

Dullspork: Don't mind us grumpy old men, because it appears you are correct in this case. I checked out some pictures and yes, the engines are indeed mounted in the middle of the fuselage.

I'm leaning toward that being the defender's engine. There don't seem to be any other options (none of the studs like TIEs have in the back) and it does need an engine.

Dullspork: Don't mind us grumpy old men, because it appears you are correct in this case. I checked out some pictures and yes, the engines are indeed mounted in the middle of the fuselage.

Lol - I'm both grumpy and old myself.

For the engine issue you can either blame galoob toys for the TIE Defender toy they made back around 1998 and Decipher's star wars card game for the TIE Defender we have today. It was a completely different ship model in the old TIE Fighter PC game. The three engines were still in the middle, but nothing like what Decipher did with it. They just kitbashed a Defender from a TIE Interceptor model.

Dullsport got it perfect though with what we have now, and it's badass paint job at that! nicely done, you really made the details pop out and the engine glow almost looks like it has a light inside there.

Really like that Defender, great repaint!

If you don't mind me asking what colours have you used?

Really like that Defender, great repaint!

If you don't mind me asking what colours have you used?

I started with a coat of Vallejo Shadow Grey (or whatever they call it). Then I used black washes of various densities depending on whether I wanted the final color to be black or dark grey. The red is Jo Sonja Napthol Crimson with black used as a mixer for shading. The engine glow is a base of P3 Cygnar Blue Highlight, then that was mixed with various shades of white to get the lighter color.

Looks really good Jay, I was gonna chime in with suppot for your choice of engine flare, as I saw a repaint of one on here a while back and the painter put 3 small discs of plastic in the hole and "glowed" them.. looked pretty good..

I did a heavy wash on one and put some stripes on the wings aka Ace markings, but I'm not sure I'm happy with them.. they are in silver white, and I may just redo them in red..

I must say though the red in the cockpit is outstanding, and looks awesome. I think FFG should have done the TIEs like that.. they do have a red lit interior and would show up that way.. been thinking of doing all mine in red... thinking... not doing.. lol

I started with a coat of Vallejo Shadow Grey (or whatever they call it). Then I used black washes of various densities depending on whether I wanted the final color to be black or dark grey.

Thanks for that, i am planning to repaint a TIE Interceptor myself and was about to base coat it black and work up the wing/fuse colour, but i really like the results you have achieved with a grey base coat and a series of black washes.

Although sounds like i really have to go research where the engine exhausts are

Think i'll steal the red cockpit glass too, that'll go really nice with what i have in mind.

Time to repaint to some non-swarm models it seems! Thanks for mentioning the colours!

I started with a coat of Vallejo Shadow Grey (or whatever they call it). Then I used black washes of various densities depending on whether I wanted the final color to be black or dark grey.

Thanks for that, i am planning to repaint a TIE Interceptor myself and was about to base coat it black and work up the wing/fuse colour, but i really like the results you have achieved with a grey base coat and a series of black washes.

Although sounds like i really have to go research where the engine exhausts are

Think i'll steal the red cockpit glass too, that'll go really nice with what i have in mind.

I should mention a bit about my washes (and I really need to do a video on this I think).

Over the past year I've made a shift in how I create washes. I use Liquitex Airbrush Medium as my base (or, in this case, Golden Airbrush Medium because I was experimenting). There's a recipe out there for a mix of matte medium, water, flow medium, retarder and water to do essentially the same thing that the airbrush medium achieves on its own (though airbrush medium has no matting agent so it tends to dry glossier). I've found that the Golden medium appears to have more retarder and therefor takes longer to dry.

So, why do I use this medium? I've found that it provides a consistency that I've never really been able to get out of washes in the past. Want your washes to find the crevices and affect the surface layer as little as possible? Use less paint in the medium. Want it to be more of a glaze or filter? Add more paint. In any case it tends to blend out nicely as it dries and won't pool like Citadel shades can (don't get me wrong, I use the hell out of their shade line, but not so much for washes). Using this method has really changed my painting style dramatically.

So for the Defender the black wash on the panels was fairly pigment dense. This means that although the whole thing started as the same base color the panels read as black. Same thing for the core hull. At the same time, it leaves enough grey to provide a nice highlight to start with.

Everytime I see your repaints, I get jealous. What do you charge for repaints like this?

Everytime I see your repaints, I get jealous. What do you charge for repaints like this?

Contact me via my website if you're interested in commissions: http://www.jayadan.com