Yikes! Just finished my first set of TIE Fighters... blech! SO fiddly, with all the little vanes on the panels. Blech! The X-Wings are SO much easier:(

Prime. Then drybrush gray. Make sure to hit the vanes well. Paint the panels black. Touch up the edges in gray.

It's a pretty easy system.

I have very little experience in painting minis, but if you keep it simple, you get a rather nice result with very little effort. I just sprayed them black, drybrushed with grey, washed it with black, and the dry brushed with grey again, and finally just added a little blue for the engines. It took probably less than a minute per miniature, and requires basically no skill at all, and the result is so much better than the unpainted. Especially when you have 25 minis on the board at the same time.

I started doing this myself and my lack of skill shows.

DId a base prime. Then painted the solar panels, then painted the cockpit, and just started the trim between the panels. Even the dry brushing is hard and tedious. The inside trim looks horrid. I really have trouble getting fine lines, even with a 20/0 detail brush I still press down too hard and get the same results of a 3/0 round brush. Definatly going to have to go over the panels again with a wash to neaten it up

Prime. Then drybrush gray. Make sure to hit the vanes well. Paint the panels black. Touch up the edges in gray.

It's a pretty easy system.

On my second set I did the drybrush method, except I mixed blue and gray - going for that blueish TIE fighter look, while my first set is all grey.

Much easier, instead of 4 hours it took me one. Still need to touch up some of the wings in black, but all in all I'm happy with the result.

Yeah, I did a bit of drybrushing... it is the vanes on the wings, though, that are taking me forever. I undercoated black, then a gray basecoat, then a lighter drybrush, then a wash, then a final drybrush. I also wanted to do the vanes around the edges of each panel, and the inside vanes, because otherwise I find it looks a tiny bit funny, but woof... again, hard.

Primed in white, used a Liquidtex parchment spray, added a german gray to the solar panels, red to engine and nuln oil wash. I have some touchups on the edges of the solar panels and the green to the lasers.

Painting these things like you would a 30mm model (or thereabouts) will drive you absolutely loopy. Drybrushing, I am losing my eyesight, who would want to speed up the process?

Prime. Then drybrush gray. Make sure to hit the vanes well. Paint the panels black. Touch up the edges in gray.

It's a pretty easy system.

You can also use a wash or ink to get the panels black. Citadel/GW Nuln Oil or a slightly watered down black works great.

Another nice touch is to put gloss coat on the canopy glass (for all fighters). Makes it stand out.

I coated the model in Russ Grey, then did the panels black with a fine detail brush, both inside and out.

Cleaned up my lines with another round of Russ Grey, washed with Nuln Oil, and then added red dots for the lasers. Fairly quick, and it turned out well.