Mini/micro diorama tips?

[ShilohCyan]

Hey, after building the May the Fourth homestead set and hearing about a rumored 2021 set, I'm getting into mini/micro builds. 

I'm ready to build a Death Star diorama for the original trilogy but I'm struggling with ideas for the prequels and sequels. 

Coruscant would be more grey next to the Death Star, and I don't need more desert if I have Tatooine on display as well. Christophsis would be just another city and trans blue would be hard to find in the quantities needed. 

 

As for the sequel trilogy, they don't stay put very much. Jakku and Pasaana are yet another desert on top of Tatooine and maybe Geonosis. Krayt and Starkiller Base would look a lot like Hoth which I might do. Takodana, D'qar, and the jungle from 9 I don't remember the name of don't have enough important events. 

So what are 1 or 2 planets from the prequels and sequels that would look different enough from Tatooine and the Death Star that would make sense to have battles raging overhead?

 

and please keep your "prequels/sequels suck" comments to yourself. They're irrelevant and the OT is my priority anyway. 

[TeddytheSpoon]

4 hours ago, ShilohCyan said:

Hey, after building the May the Fourth homestead set and hearing about a rumored 2021 set, I'm getting into mini/micro builds. 

I'm ready to build a Death Star diorama for the original trilogy but I'm struggling with ideas for the prequels and sequels. 

Coruscant would be more grey next to the Death Star, and I don't need more desert if I have Tatooine on display as well. Christophsis would be just another city and trans blue would be hard to find in the quantities needed. 

 

As for the sequel trilogy, they don't stay put very much. Jakku and Pasaana are yet another desert on top of Tatooine and maybe Geonosis. Krayt and Starkiller Base would look a lot like Hoth which I might do. Takodana, D'qar, and the jungle from 9 I don't remember the name of don't have enough important events. 

So what are 1 or 2 planets from the prequels and sequels that would look different enough from Tatooine and the Death Star that would make sense to have battles raging overhead?

 

and please keep your "prequels/sequels suck" comments to yourself. They're irrelevant and the OT is my priority anyway. 

Naboo could be a good option but you might be limited to N-1s and vulture droids. It did feature as level in BFII but I'm not sure how canonical that is (ie there was a battle there in the CW era), if at all. Kashyykk would also be a good option IMO (that definitely had some space battles above it), and maybe Ryloth as well.

It depends if you count these as OT or OT-adjacent, but Scarif would be great (and my top choice personally) and potentially Lothal as well, although from memory it is kinda... Beige.

As you said ST doesn't have much in terms of large-scale space battles apart from Starkiller base or Exegol, and I'm not really sure what Exegol looks like other than pretty dark. Crait could be cool since I think it saw a battle in the OT era as well.

Hope that gives some food for thought!

[Per_SW]

First of all I would love to see the results when the builds are done, although I never tried microscale I've always admired this kind of build :)

For the PT/CW era I would also recommend Kashyyyk to add some greenery, although if you have/plan to do an Endor build it could be redundant, same as the Geonosis/Tattooine similarity - even if Geonosis could be done a bit redder. If not Felucia could be an interesting choice if you want to get weird with the colours.
Other ideas are the domed cities of Mandalore (but then again a bit grey) or Umbara if you want to go a bit darker with the palette.

I unfortunately have nothing for the sequel era, I don't much enjoy/remember them and as you stated there is little variation between desert/white/maybe some jungle, but following on the Scarif suggestion (which I also endorse) I see potential in Solo, with Corellia -grey, yes, but could be different with the addition of water and the docks/shipyards- and the train-heist on Vandor -white, but the mountains bring more elevation than Hoth and having a microscale monorail going through them could be an interesting build.

Hope you find the suggestions useful :)
 

[Kit Figsto]

I'd third the Kashyyk suggestion, provided you're not doing Yavin IV/Dagobah/Endor for the OT.  I think some of the vehicles (Tank Droid, Wookiee Catamaran, Turbo Tank) would be quite fun in a micro scale.  I think Naboo is also different enough from the others (kind of similar to Yavin IV, possibly) to where a space battle would work with the N-1 Starfighters.  Geonosis also is distinct enough, at least to me, from Jakku or Tatooine, since it's a lot redder.  

As far as the sequels go, Exegol could be interesting.  You could build some of the spires of the Sith temple, and then have a ton of Star Destroyers and other ships above.  The actual planet would be kind of boring, probably just some terrain with the temple structures, but there's a lot of potential for the space battle above.  

I suppose you could do Canto Bight, even if there wasn't really a space battle above it?  

 

[SquirrelArmy]

What plans have you got for your Trench run structure?

I had an idea of using the new road pieces as the main structural base and then just add greebling to detail it.