TIE Fighter - You guys have probably already seen this... but I needed it in my thread. This set was ordered by shadowMX5 (Evan), a long time Miata buddy and the person who first commissioned the 10AE gauge set. This is the 2nd set of custom gauges for his own 10AE.
Evan approached me with a request for some Star Wars inspired gauges and sent me a pic of the TIE Fighter targeting computer. He told me to go nuts. Design whatever I wanted as long as it was somewhat inspired by the TIE. I... panicked.
I usually like an open-ended order. But the subject matter for these gauges is SO broad... I demanded that Evan help me along the way and keep me pointed in the right direction. I started work on the simple gauges - the small gauges.
This water temp gauge was first. I'd done a version of this for a previous custom order and brought it in for the TIE fighter set. Star Wars nuts will recognize the Death Star tractor beam control panel. The temp gauge really seemed to need a traditional gauge layout. The tractor beam art is so pretty. It was easy to modify for a Miata gauge sweep. The text reads "low" and "high" in aurebesh.
The oil gauge is modeled after the radar display in many of the X-wing and TIE games of the late 90s. I personally loved those games, as did Evan. This one shows some red characters above the half way mark which show good oil pressure, high pressure, and anything below the half mark as "uh oh". An off character is shown as well.
The fuel is the 3rd gauge I designed. This one is based on the display in Anakin's starfighter in the 3rd prequel. I'm rather proud of the design work in this.
The circle marked "high" shows a full tank. The tall line in the middle is the 1/2 mark. The red line next to that is the 1/4 mark. The white dot on the far left shows empty. And the gauge can also show the "below empty" zone with the red line right under the E mark.
This IS the targeting computer for the TIE fighter essentially. The blue lines are screen accurate. This tach shows 0 RPM, 3000, 6000, and 8500 with the long blue bars. The red line on the top right shows the OEM red zone. The top edge lines up with 7000 RPM and the bottom edge shows 8000 RPM. Additionally, the red characters on the bottom left show the idle zone. The far right character is 1000 RPM. Evan's 10AE build sequence is the 1027 number above. Finally, the high beam indicator is shown by the "BEAM" text and artwork between 3 and 6000.
Finally, the speedometer. This one wanted to be a more traditional gauge, so I used the same style as on the water gauge with a blue mesh background. I used a bit of artistic license on the numbering (.4 and 8. instead of 40 and 80). 100 mph is identified by "LIGHT" (or hyperspace) in aurebesh. There's a DANGER zone for traveling above light speed.
Night lighting. They look positively otherworldly in person. Hell, they look FAKE in person. It's the best lighting effect I've ever done on a gauge set.
My inner 5 year old is squealing in happiness. Seriously... I can't believe I got the opportunity to make these. For a life-long Star Wars fan, this was pretty much the most fun order possible.
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Originally Posted by Dave737
