Making the TIE-Fighter (Part 1)

Maya: TIE - Fighter

Making the body

For the beginning of the body of the model i created a sphere which i would use as the base before then using tools such as extrude, scale and adding devisions to form the central window on the model.

Initially i had trouble forming the central window as I was unable to create the frame as seen in the reference photo. My method of creating it initially was to move the edges inside the window and extrude them out whilst scaling however this caused sections to unnecessarily overlap each other making the model look weird and not as it should.

After a while of testing different tools on multiple spheres to see its effects, I managed to create a smooth ring around the front to form the main frame, inside this i then added more devisions and extruded outwards to form the central frame and ring.

Cross section - Joining body and wings

Reference image: here

I used multiple web searches to compare various TIE fighters as each model was different, upon seeing this I decided to pick the best parts from various models to put together to create mine. 

To create the connections I selected faces on either side of the body before extruding and then moving the section outwards.

Stacked posts:

In the image below you can see how the joining section comes out from the main body then rotates inwards before coming directly outwards again. This was achieved by firstly extruding the shape outwards to where you can see the devision line, from here I would then use the extrude tools again to pull the section further before scaling it downwards so that the circle becomes smaller and the faces move inwards. At this point I then extrude again to bring the shape outwards in a straight line.

Upon completing the first section I then used the mirror tools to mirror the strut onto the opposite side which saved some time. Upon getting to this point I then decided to save my work at which point the program crashed on me, causing me to loose my work.