A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away … an exciting new TIE fighter appeared for the first time on screen. Initially designed for Star Wars: Episode VII The Force Awakens, the Outland TIE fighter would have to wait until the Disney+ streaming TV series The Mandalorian to be seen by audiences. With folding wings and a trio of deployable landing legs, the Outland TIE was a new spin on the original design that left several Star Wars fans hoping for a scale model.
Sensing a tremor in the Force, Revell Germany retooled its 1/65 scale (more about this later) TIE fighter kit, with not only new fuselage parts but wing halves, partial frames, cannons, and three different wing ends. These last allow you to model the Outland TIE wings in typical vertical flight mode, partially folded coming in for a landing, and then completely folded with landing gear deployed.
Yes, there is a stand, but, to my mind, if you’re going to build the Outland TIE, the whole reason is to have it with wings folded and landed — otherwise, it’s just another TIE fighter. Technically, you could swap out the different wing ends to display the model however and whenever the whim strikes you, but that will cause wear and tear on your paint. It’s best to choose an option and stick to it.
If you’re looking for a figure of Moff Gideon as the pilot, you’ll be disappointed. Here, the kit provides a standard TIE fighter pilot. The pilot would have been nicely detailed, except that it was molded from semi-soft vinyl plastic and had a hole in its abdomen from a popped bubble. That was easily fixed with Green Stuff's two-part epoxy putty.
Less easily remedied was the inordinate amount of flash around the entire figure. The plastic did not like being sanded, filed, or scraped, which left slicing it off—not the cleanest method. Also, the slick vinyl would not hold acrylic primer or paint well. I recommend base-coating the pilot with a more aggressive primer and working from there. Handle it as little as possible, just to be safe, or ignore the pilot entirely.
The cockpit builds up from four parts, plus the seat/pilot and controls/front panel subassemblies. Test-fitting revealed the cockpit interior to be a tight fit all around. I drilled the controls and the pilot’s hands and pinned them together using short lengths of brass rod and superglue. Then I cut the locators off the bottom of the seat and glued the four bulkheads in place. Once they were firmly in position, I glued the seat down. Make sure the seat is placed over the slots where the locators were because this ensures the pilot’s head won’t interfere with the top hatch’s hinge.
The small decal sheet is devoted to interior markings. I found the film rigid and resistant to both decal solutions and heat. However, after repeated attempts, I got them to settle.
The fuselage assembles easily enough, though I was disappointed with the engineering for the glass in the top hatch: The locators for the hinge end up in the middle of two windows. I would have preferred there be no hinge and leave the hatch in place or to pop it off to reveal the interior.
Two parts comprise each wing half: solar panels and one side of a frame, and a frame to go around the solar panels on the opposite side of the first part. When removing the frames (parts I38 and J40), be careful. The sprue gates are in the middle of long, delicate runs that can break easily.
I left off the landing gear and bay doors and wings until after painting.
Revell provides color callouts throughout its instructions for its proprietary colors. I decided to pick up colors from Archive-X, which specializes in paints matched to Star Wars filming miniatures. The colors I used were Dark Reefer Grey (No. AX-005), Lark Dark Grey (No. AXZ-008), 1975 Engine Black (No. AX-011), and ILM Stormy Sea (No. AX-042). I supplemented with Tamiya and Vallejo colors where needed.
The painting proved the biggest challenge for finishing the Outland TIE. Some complicated masking needs to be done, and patience will prove invaluable. I masked the front windshield with Tamiya tape and the thin windows in the top hatch with Silly Putty. For large areas, like the solar panels, I used tape with newspaper swatches that I cut to fit.
If you plan to use the stand, there are prominent ejector-pin marks you’ll want to rectify. Pin marks are also on the interior of the landing bay doors, though they aren’t apparent unless you lift the model to inspect the underside. Similarly, unlike TIE fighter models from other makers, the kit doesn’t supply a plug for the hole in the bottom of the fuselage to accommodate the stand.
The lower wing halves were installed without difficulty. When installing the upper-wing halves, I needed to apply just a bit of pressure to the ends to allow them to fully seat. Otherwise, they locked into place without needing glue.
A note about scale: Revell Germany says the Outland TIE is 1/65 scale. According to Haynes Star Wars TIE Fighter Owners’ Workshop Manual (Insight Editions, ISBN 978-1-68383-527-1), a TIE fighter stands 28 feet 11 inches tall. The upright wing for the model measures 7 and 5/16 inches tall. Rounding up to 29 feet for the full-size version and doing the math puts the model at about 1/48 scale. If it were 1/65 scale, the model’s extended wing would be just over 5 ½ inches tall.
Overall, I enjoyed building the Revell Germany Outland TIE fighter. It’s definitely different than any other TIE in my collection and unique in the lineage of starfighters for the Galactic Empire. It took me about 30 hours, with the majority of the time spent on masking and painting. This would not be a great solo project for a beginner, but if you’re building with a novice who is also a Star Wars fan, it would be a great project to introduce them to masking and airbrushing.