Here are the completed photos of my Fourth Axis TIE Crawler Tank conversion for the old MPC Return of the Jedi TIE Interceptor snap-tite kit. While the kit was designed for the old MPC kit and AMT/Ertl reissues, it could be used on the AMT/Ertl TIE fighter kit as well.
The kit represents a TIE tank from Star Wars Expanded Universe, or in other words, did not appear in any of the movies. The kit was primed in Dark Gull Gray, which is actually a fairly light gray color. The final coat was Gunship Gray lightened with just a touch of the Dark Gull Gray. The tracks were painted flat black and highlighted with Jet Exhaust.
For weathering, the kit was given a black wash and then Prof. Weathers Weathering Powders Grimy Black was used to give the kit the look that it just traversed a burned battlefield. A light coat of Future was used to seal the finish.
The configuration represents a tank from the 21st Armored Storm Trooper Regiment (Vader’s Own) armed with a single laser cannon in a chin turret. Other armament options were twin laser blasters in fixed mounts and the final variant used both the chin turret and the twin blasters. There is no photographic evidence of the final variant so many modelers categorize it as “Empire 46”. In this alternate reality, Luke misses the thermal shaft and the Death Star is not destroyed. Some variants used on Endor were equipped with chainlink armor to ward off Ewok suicide attacks. There are rumors zimmerit was used as well.
NICE ROB! I didn’t know you did sci-fi too! I thought I was beginning to feel that me, J-Hulk, and MAdModelFactory were the only regularsci-fi guys in the armour forume. I had a book which list both cannan and non-cannan star wars vehicles and I remember the “tie-tank” being one of them. Nice build. All it needs is an anti-aircraft weapon for those pesky Rebel fly boys!LOL I have an extra interceptor lying around some where but I need bor my classice “V” formation flight dio with two tie-interceptors with the Vaderr Tie in the middle. What did you make the treads and sides from?
The crawler is a resin conversion kit that is OOP. I’m also working on Darth Vader’s TIE Advanced. The basis for the build is the excellent Estes model rocket Darth Vader TIE Fighter. I’ve added details and cockpit from the Return of the Jedi TIE Interceptor. The kits are the exact same scale and look like they come from the same company. I’ve got the Ertl twin TIE fighter set to go with that project to do a Death Star trench scene.
Thanks, the talk of a sci-fi group build got me searching for my posts. I think it was the last time I built a sci-fi kit in a group build, but I’m not sure. I noticed the old posts had outdated picture links and updated them.
The conversion and company disappeared rather quickly. It was available for a blink.
The biggest problem with the conversion is that the tread portions weigh a ton. I had to insert a screw into each track sponson with the screw head protruding a few millimeters. The screw head went into each end of the command pod to lock it in place.
Proving that old threads aren’t dead (zombies), this one just showed up on Facebook in a discussion about our upcoming review of the MPC Star Wars: Return of the Jedi TIE Interceptor rebox/update. Always nice to see old conversations re-emerge.
