Tag Archives: Naboo

Holidays in a galaxy far, far away are closer to home than you think

The other day, I saw someone ask where the best location in Star Wars would be for a holiday. Personally I think Naboo is the best answer, and having seen Abe Fortier‘s LEGO slice of Naboo, I’m even more sure of that fact. For one thing, there’s no-one here! Jokes aside, the lack of minifigures was a deliberate choice by Abe, and while that can make large creations like this look empty, it pays off here as it gives the architecture room to breathe. Civilisation and nature co-exist nicely, the latter serving a dual purpose in the build. The vegetation creeping up the walls helps to break things up and provide visual interest, as does some excellent texturing and weathering. There’s also just enough Star Wars clutter to drive home that this is Naboo, and not somewhere here on Earth. Mind you Naboo is based on locations such as Seville, in Spain, and Lake Como in Italy… Maybe we can go on holiday there after all!

Slice of Naboo

The Star Wars Clone Wars unfold on a massive light-up Naboo diorama

Say what you will about the Star Wars prequels, Naboo is a planet that everyone agrees is beautiful. Inspired by its appearance in 2017’s Battlefront II videogame, Belgian LEGO Star Wars YouTuber Axidroid spent eight months building a Clone Wars battle scene in the streets of Theed. With 121 minifigures, with most of them being from the popular 501st Battlepack, there are also custom vehicles such as the Gunships, AAT tank, and AT-RT walker. While large Star Wars dioramas are not uncommon, the 140cm by 77cm size dwarfs the largest LEGO Star Wars set, the UCS Imperial Star Destroyer, which is 110cm by 66cm.

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While the size of this build is impressive, the real kicker is at nighttime. Using Christmas LED lights inside the buildings and street lamps, Axidroid lights up the Theed plaza into a lovely atmospheric scene. The battle droids and clone troopers now look like they’re lined up for an evening festival, and bring the Mediterranean setting of Naboo even closer to home.

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Axidroid even documented his 8-month long build process in a YouTube video series. In the finale below he shows off all the details in the expansive build.

Explore more builds of Naboo here.

A good ol’ apartment building in Theed, Naboo

I think it’s safe to say that many fans’ fascination with Star Wars revolves around the universe itself with its interesting planets offering eye-catching landscapes and architecture. Anthony’s LEGO model of an apartment dwelling on Naboo, while not an exact building from the films, reimagines the aesthetic of Naboo’s capital city, Theed and projects it onto an everyday building.

This model certainly is referential to modular type builds, but two features really hone in on the Star Wars vibe. The obvious one being the clone trooper minifigures on patrol, and the other – the sand green dome which is a signature element of Naboo’s architecture. The dome is definitely my favorite part of this build, comprised of two sand green dish pieces laid on top of a square base made with sand green slopes, tiles, and bricks. The rest of the structure is quite standard; composed of bricks, slopes, and tiles as well as some more ornamental elements which can be seen in the archways, windows, and balcony. Quite honestly Anthony’s modular could fit into a larger brick-built Naboo cityscape or just as well a regular LEGO city, its specificity as well as its versatility is much appreciated.

One of ours, out of the main hangar

If you take a stroll through my post history, you’ll see that two things I love are Star Wars and microscale. So Eli Willsea hits out of the park, in my book, combining the two for his Theed Hanger. Zeroing in on N-1 Starfighter, you’ll see that nifty parts usage abounds.

Theed Hangar

Whether it’s the blades as the front fuselage, the paint cans, the switch track throw, and minifigure hands as engines, or the simple silver cupcake icing swirl as an astromech droid, this ship is ready to leave the hanger. A hanger, which contrasting the minute detail of the fighter, stays true to the large and blockyness of Theed. But as simple as the structure might appear, it is also rife with neat ways of using pieces, such as the old school wheels as the top and bottom of the columns.

An alternative to coarse sand and cold space

Most Star Wars sets and fan creations tend to take the form of ships or other types of vehicles, of course LEGO has welcomed more buildings recently but such builds are still a minority in the theme. Eloi Parizeau takes us to Naboo not in a starship but with his LEGO micro-build of the Theed Royal Palace.

Naboo Theed Palace

The nicest thing about working in micro-scale is that a builder is able to use small parts that are actually pretty common or easy to obtain, Parizeau’s structural build of the palace consists of some pretty standard parts in varying shapes and sizes such as dishes, cones, tiles, and slopes. The colors he utilizes for this creation as a whole are a little uncommon including pieces in forest green, tan, and sand green. The one part that seems rather unique to me is the rock panel in dark grey.

Naboo Theed Palace

Using these small pieces Parizeau not only recreates the structure of the Theed Palace, but also the beautiful and lush environment of Naboo, his use of the forest green slopes and bricks along with the trans-clear blue elements brings back scenes from the Star Wars prequel films which portrayed Naboo as a blue planet filled with green vegetation. All things considered, Parizeau’s LEGO rendition of this Star Wars universe building is quite unique. It will definitely be great to see more fictional architecture brought to us by the brick in the future.