Intergalactic Empire Productions

Hello again everyone! Today we are continuing to get motivated through our Armada Squadron painting with the legendary TIE Phantom! An interesting tidbit about the coloring of TIE craft is that they were always intended to be that blueish grey color, but due to the special effects and blue screen of the time they had to be painted grey for A New Hope, and were later created.

Now its canon and both colors used. Because the TIE Phantom is a late imperial era craft, I decided to go with the blueish grey on mine but stay tuned for replicating the A New Hope grey on basic fighters in the upcoming tutorials.

Rebel fighters tend to be done with unique coloring, and each one is its own special style. Imperial craft as mass produced war machines rarely get this treatment. Just like with Rebel aces and heroes, I want my Imperial heroes to stand out as well. Looking to X Wing Miniatures for inspiration I found what I personally liked.

For each stealth fighter except one to denote a character, we will do a base coat of Layer Ulthuan Grey from Games Workshop. As before, this is not sponsorship or promoting any product. I just like it.

Now that we have a coat of this on there, we are going to drybrush it with Dry Stormfang. When applied on top of Ulthuan Grey we get a nice slightly blue effect.

This shade is a tad to light colored, but we will fix that shortly. Next we are going to use Base Mephiston Red to base coat the hero’s fighter and paint stripes on their wingmen. The stripes will follow the main strut for the wing on each side like so.

Next we will do a Shad Nuln Oil wash on the craft. I made sure to get the front of the cockpit as well as the engines in the back to create a nice shade effect. This will also tone the blue down to a blueish grey just like it’s supposed to be.

Next we use Base Abaddon Black to VERY CAREFULLY dip the window panes up front, the four panes going across the canopy, the little engine exhaust in the back, and to fill in the solar panels on the wings. I personally find this much easier than trying to paint the trim onto the black without making a mess. If you get any black where it is not supposed to go, just wipe it immediately. If the black stains the color, just touch it up at the end. Keeping all of these lines nice and neat will be daunting and frustrating, but remember they won’t be seen at closer than three feet away, so take a step back and look again before beating yourself up too bad.

And you are done! Imperial ships were mass produced for the movies and got less attention to detail. Combined with the Empire mentality of numerous faceless soldiers this works on multiple levels.

How did yours come out? Subscribe if you want to stay tuned for more painting guides.