This microscale model by Koen is of Agrabah, the fictional city from the Disney animated film Aladdin, and serves as the perfect bird’s eye view to the minifigure-scale scene we highlighted earlier today. The numerous tower tops using a variety of pearl gold domes and curved elements are well designed, and the inkwell part ties them all together nicely. One of my favorite missable details is the use of 2×2 macaroni tiles facing each other to create those lovely dark pink and teal stripes in the three larger towers. It also takes some clever brickwork to pair eight of the pearl gold 3×3 quarter domes together into a solid sphere.
And if you liked this microscale Agrabah, be sure to check out Peter Ilmrud’s minifig-scale Agrabah we featured earlier today!
The onion domes are a lot easier than you might think. The quarter tiles being placed top-to-top is less about achieving the colored stripes as it is about flipping the stud orientation. The quarter domes have studs on the top, so you need a way to attach them studs-down for the bottom of the sphere. The R2-D2 heads serve to tie the studs together up top. In between, there’s no hollow space between the parts to work with, but it’s super easy to just drop an axle into the tubes. It provides a moderate friction connection and keeps things lined up properly, which is all you really need, especially on a static display piece like this.
@Purple Dave
This me I so more complex, though. The SNOT build in the middle and the added width and height allude to this.
@Mr. Thrawn
True, but there’s so much extra room inside that to work with, and there’s Kunce bricks, and other bricks that have studs on multiple sides. I can’t say for sure how the large onion dome is built just from the picture, but that’s only because there are so many options for how to achieve the same exterior view. The small onion domes have a lot less options.