Animator Paul Johnson (youtube user name OtaKing77077) spent four years worth of weekends animating this incredible Star Wars anime fan film Star Wars: TIE Fighter. Paul explains:

What if there was an Empire-focussed short Star Wars animation, drawn with the crazy detail and shading of classic 80s anime that’s all but vanished from Japan nowadays? Well, I tried my best. Apologies in advance for not living up to Venus Wars standards. Drawn and animated by yours truly over 4 years’ worth of weekends, with music by the living guitar solo Zak Rahman and sound design by up and coming audio technician Joseph Leyva. Fans of Lucasarts’ seminal 1994 TIE Fighter game may notice a few familiar sights and sounds. That “incoming missile” noise gives me horrible flashbacks to this day…

The resulting fan film is beautiful and makes me wish Disney had opted for a more stylized look for Star Wars Rebels. (No complaints, I’m sure we’ll have years of animated Star Wars television shows to look forward to.) Watch Paul Johnson’s seven-minute Star Wars anime short film Star Wars: TIE Fighter embedded after the jump.

Star Wars Anime Short Film TIE Fighter

Paul also created a poster for the Star Wars anime fan film, which you can see below. He explains it on his Deviant Art page:

I always loved those really classy oil/acrylic-painted movie posters by folks like Drew Struzan, with all kinds of stuff going on in the background for you to spend ages dissecting with your eyes. You know the ones. So I wanted to try something like that, except in the cel-shaded style of the short film. The results are nowhere near the original Star Wars movie poster level of quality or composition, but I guess it does the job.

I can’t imagine working on something for four years, dedicating most of my weekends but the result is amazing.