Id like to preface that i only consider myself a novice painter, and as such this tutorial will be a guide aimed at the beginner. Also id like to point out that my way is not the only way to do this and i encourage and would love to see experimentation by anyone else.

The Materials used in this Tutorial are.

* Hobby knife or razor (for cutting flash)

* A size 2-3 brush (I used a citadel starter brush for the majority)

* Black base coat (any brand will do, however i used GW Abanddon Black)

* A light grey color for the panels and superstructure (I used Adminustratum Grey)

* A darker Grey to paint the cockpit Window (I used Mechanicus standard grey)

* A light green or red color for the front laser mounts, Its up to you ( I went with GW Goblin Green as i think it meshes better than red)

* A red color for the engine glow (most reds will do)

* A dark wash of your choosing. THIS IS IMPORTANT ( will not go over washes in this tutorial, I will assume you're experienced in them, however if you have any questions feel free to message me)

* Finally a gloss and matt finish (the gloss is for the cockpit, laser mounts, and engine.

As you can see the flash can be significant on some of the fighters, this step is not necessary but it can help to give your job that next level of quality. or your OCD like me and just want everything even.

After you've removed the flash from your fighters you should wash all of the models thoroughly in lukewarm water, you may use soap if you wish, i did not. It wont hurt

Then you can get ready to paint!

NOTE : Bent wings seem to be an issue with the tie fighters of at least the core set, if you feel you want to change these to be more strait the solution is simple. Water treat the ships with a rather hot source of water (fairly hot but not boiling) you should be able to bend the wings back. I do not think this step necessary however and as such have not attempted it

So the first paint step is the base coat, this is fairly important and you can really decide to go to ways here. You can either base the model in black and paint in the main grey areas or base it in grey and paint in the main black areas. I personally decided to base in black and unless your a fairly good painter i suggest you do the same.

For black you can paint on, spray paint, or dip. I painted on, the models are tiny and light enough to make spraying for me a bit of a pain and i like to paint! But i recommend you tack them onto a popsicle stick or the like and give them a good go with spray paint as you'll achieve a better consistency.

When you're done you should have something like.

And a shot of all the paints I use in this tutorial

After you've done up all your ties in black you can then move on too adding the grey. This is the meat of the paint job and will likely take you the most time. I like to work on wing at a time going inwards so that i can leave it on the opposite side to dry. Do all the squadrons that way and by the time you get done the first one will have dried and you can do the other wing.

You want to hit the outside wing panels, try to keep your brush flat to the wing in order to get the best result. The wing sides also need to be painted and finally the superstructure, if you want an easier job you can just do that. However I personally don't think it looks quite right without the inner panels done. You'll have to do this freehand unless there is a better method that im unaware of.

NOTE : you'll be coming back later with black to clean up your mistakes so don't worry about getting it perfect.

If you've painted the inner panels and the wings edges, superstructure you should have something like this.

NOTE : If you want to stop here thats fine, give the superstructure a good dose of dark wash and the model will look ok in large numbers at a distance and much better than unpainted. That is just if you want to paint a lot fast and are not overly concerned with detail.

The next step is to go back with black and clean up your paneling, you can get as detailed or crazy as you want here but its not necessary, rule of thumb is if you hold the mini at arms length away and don't notice the imperfection its fine.

NOTE : It's important to figure out what you want to do about the pegs stemming from the fighters. I have painted them all black from the fighter down because i want to minimize their visual impact. However you could incorporate them into you color scheme by for instance painting each squadrons pegs a different color to differentiate the squads or any other such thing

Your fighter should start looking more like a tie now. ain't they cute!

The next step in the process is to paint the Ties cockpit window in, Close inspection of a tie fighters cockpit window in reference material will yield that the window is a shade darker to the superstructure of the craft.

TIP : I'm a huge fan of military insignia and symbols on my fighters but its important to keep it subtle, use WW2 as your guide. With that in mind the cockpit ring for Ace or important squadrons could be other colors which will add a subtle difference to the craft

After the Cockpit window is the Engine glow, this is another personal preference thing. You can do different colors or even a darker shade of red filled with a lighter one to give it depth. The main thing is you want a vibrant color coming from the engine port to bring detail out and more importantly to let you know at a glance that it is the back side of the model!

NOTE : The engine ports on a tie fighter are two small exhausts on the opposite sides of the Ionization solar panel, which is what ive painted as the engine in this tutorial. These are not modeled on the figure and present problems to paint. one if you chose to paint the laser mounts red you may be confused which side is the front from a glance a distance. The second is given the distance i felt a larger engine glow was necessary. So know this when deciding if you want to paint the Panel as an engine as i have. I will go over a more detailed cannon correct paint job with my Tie masterclass in a later Tut.

As a stickler for military realism i recommend you base the color off real world jet engines. Look for reference photos! weird colors for engines freak me out though, But do you!! XD

Sadly I forgot to take pics of the next step but it couldn't be more easy! You add in the laser mount color dot to both lasers underneath the cockpit. I've seen red and green used for these things and generally I think its a good idea to stick to those colors. I will recommend green though because i think it looks much better and more subtle. Make sure to get a nice solid color here but don't worry if its not to bright or noticeable, it'll pop more when we gloss it.

The next step is very important for the overall look of the model to be good. Take your dark wash of choice and paint it on to the entire superstructure, Make sure to get a strong glob on top of the cockpit so it soaks in some nice black windows. I went pretty heavy on my wash but I think it looks better at a distance that way, go as much or little as you may think you want, experiment!

The next steps are the easiest, you use you paint gloss to hit the cockpit, the laser mounts, and the engine. You can do this multiple times if you want a particularly poppin fighter. I only applied one layer.

After that you paint the entire model with the clear varnish or hardcoat of your choice and you are done!

And now some pictures of two core sets fighters completed!

Howlrunner leading her swarm

A closeup of howlrunner and her Two wingmates. Notice her Red ace insignia

And a few shots of a mock battle to show them on the field, excuse the grey mat its all i had.

Battle commences!

Oh no!

Its the Elite fighters of Clover Squadron!

Clover Squadron, and the art of Elite squadrons.

I love to develop backstories and roleplaying elements for all my games and characters and Armada is no exception. One of the cooler aspects to me about the fighter squadrons is that i can develop my own unique squadrons that have character and feel real to me. However it's a fine line between a believable, realistic, cool elite/ace/unique squadron and something that just seems hokey. This is especially true with the imperials who are extremely spartan in their ship appearances. With a navy sooooo large though there has to be a few oddballs out, especially if this is WW2 in space!

With that i present to you Clover Squadron who at the moment is a WIP i like the color scheme but i still think the white is a bit to jarring for imps, i think i'll keep the black but turn the white back to imperial grey. And of course keep the Clover green! XD

More details about Clover Squadron and how to think up and paint realistic/cool elite squadrons of ties will come in a future tutorial.

Also look out for my SUPER fun X wing tutorial in the next few days. X wings are a blast to paint!!! XD

Any questions, or thoughts are welcome

And I encourage anyone who uses this tutorial to post shots of their results

Just how many TIEs are in the Armada core?!

The Ties pictured are from two different core sets. The core set includes 6 tie squadrons for a total of 18 ties.

Thank you so much for putting this up! I found it to be very informative, and I look forward to using it when I paint my own fighters!

No problem mate! check out my X wing tutorial when it comes out!

and do me a favor, send me some pics or post them so i can see how they look. I love checking out other paint jobs

Nice job on the painting, especially at the scale. Considering picking up Armada and on the fence, especially since the fighters aren't painted and I know that I'll have to get around to painting them in order to be satisfied. The only pet peeve I have is that the part you painted as the engine isn't actually an engine.

You sir have an eye for detail! I was expecting that to come up sooner. Though i did forget to put a blurb about it in the tut its there now. I can offer a recommendation for the game, i can't guarantee you'll like it but im extremely hard to make happy with mini games and this just checks all the boxes with me. I love painting the fighters soo much i ran out!!! and i bought two cores! id be happy to paint your core set for you. Im getting pretty good at it

Watch out for my 'masterclass' probably should use a name a little more modest eh tutorial for Ties and X wings where i try to get as detailed/realistic as possible. maybe i can get you too spend your hard earned money on FFG stuff XD

X wing level 1 and masterclass tutorial is up, Tie fighter Masterclass, Tie fighter aces and X-wing aces still being worked on.

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/141878-x-wing-beginnermasterclass-painting-tutorial-pic-heavy/

Tie "aces" Tutorial Preview

Thanks for posting about this - I used many of your suggestions and I think the TIEs turned out pretty nice.

Now on to the X-Wings! We'll see if I'm ambitious enough to go beyond Level 1!

Awesome,thanks for the post

They look great Nashik! I bet you could do it if you tried!!!