With my B-Wing model complete, my next task was to create it's opposition. My original idea was to make the "villain" ship a Tie Intercepter, however I wanted to make something more challenging that has moving components. One of the lesser known designs of the Tie Fighter is the Tie Defender. While it hasn't had any screen time in Star Wars movies it has been made canon through the TV show Star Wars Rebels. The ship has a very menacing design with a substantial amount of fire power; which I wanted to replicate in my model. The main feature of the fighter is that the entire wing assembly can rotate around the central cockpit rapidly to create a barrage of lasers.
I started by modelling the spherical cockpit; the main trait of all Tie Fighter variations. Throughout the modelling process I used two reference images to make sure the components were correctly scaled and in the right position. To make the front windscreen I extruded a sketch into the sphere, split the two bodies and then pulled the surface out slightly. The section in which the wings attach was made by just chamfering a cylinder.
The wing support was a crucial part I needed to be correct for the animation I had in mind. It was made from several offset sketches, cylinders and push/pulling faces. Moving over to the rear I modelled the exhaust capable of launching the vehicle into hyperspace. I used chamfers to make everything have slanted edges and I used a circular pattern to make the rectangular insets around the exhuast.
Probably the most defining feature of the Tie Defender is its amount of wing foils. I has a total of six foils, all angled towards the central cockpit. I made the wing by filleting a trapezium shaped body which I then added separating columns to match the design on the support. Afterwards, I mirrored the foil onto the opposite side and set them to the correct angle. Using the pipe tool I made three sections to add detail to the middle body. Furthermore, I added the laser cannon tips onto the end of each foil.
Once I had one entire wing connected and set as a new component I used the circular pattern tool and revolved it around the cylindrical extension to make the other two wings. This technique also ensured that the wings were evenly spaced around the cockpit.
To connect all of the wings together I modelled three intakes that sit between the supports. I then combined all of these six bodies into one new component so that it could move separately from the central body. After adding many small details and making sure no sharp edges were left I had finished the full modelling process.
Below is a sped-up version of the full Fusion 360 timeline.
Using the techniques I learnt when making my B-wing I used the Fusion animation section to rotate the wings around the cockpit. I also keyframes the camera position to show some different viewing angles.
Here is the video of my final animation.
To give the model its accurate appearance I applied a base material of steel satin over the entire surface and made the black panel's my editing the texture of the carbon fiber material; and applying it onto the separated sections on the wings. Other details included accentuate parts with a metallic grey paint and adding coloured LED's inside the exhaust and laser tips. This video shows what my Tie Defender model looks like in the Fusion 360 render envirement.
After a long process of adjusting the lighting and reflection settings I was able to create these six renders of my finished Tie Defender 3D model.
