Sunday 8 January 2017

Building the LEGO 12 days of Christmas

If you follow me on Social Media then hopefully you caught my #LEGO12DaysOfChristmas photos. I built each of the LEGO 24in1 Advent Calendar models during advent, and at the end a friend suggested I try the 12 Days Of Christmas. I could see it was a challenge that was ever increasing in work and possibly difficulty, but it was such a good challenge that I had to at least start...

Building the LEGO 12 days of Christmas

Day 1 was easy enough. A Partridge In A Pear Tree. Believe me, by day 4, I knew a lot more about birds than I did to start with...

LEGO 2 Turtle Doves 3 French Hens 4 Calling Birds Partridge

2 Turtle Doves, 3 French Hens (which turn out to be pretty much regular hens), and 4 Calling Birds - or Colley Birds as the old version of the song went. Blackbirds. We do have a couple of Gold Rings from Lord Of The Rings sets, but no idea where they are, so I kind of cheated...
 
LEGO 12 Days Of Christmas Partridge in a pear tree birds models

6 Geese A-Laying was the first day I realised this was a big undertaking. I had used up a lot of my 'wings/beaks', but had eggs from the LEGO Angry Birds sets. I wanted them to be easily recognisable, so I went with the type of Geese we usually see in 2016 in the UK - Canada Geese.

The Geese all had to be different, as I was making the models each evening and didn't have hours to search through the LEGO - plus it was Christmas! I was already busy...

LEGO 12 Days Of Christmas geese laying swans swimming

I totally cheated the 7 Swans A-Swimming. I freely admit it. But you know it works...

LEGO Maids milking 12 Days Of Christmas minifigures

8 Maids A-Milking signalled the end of birds! Yeeeay! That kind of bird anyway... and the start of minifigs. A random selection, but the Diner Waitress worked so well, especially with a carton of milk from Apu's Kwik-E Mart. I just made up the cow - it had 6 udders until my partner pointed out I was a bit over-excitable there...

LEGO cow and Maids milking 12 Days Of Christmas

9 Ladies Dancing and it was my partner's idea to use the LEGO Friends style figures. We also ended up with Anna and Elsa from the Frozen Castle, and even Naida, one of the LEGO Elves.

LEGO 12 Days Of Christmas 9 ladies dancing friends minifigs

The handbags had to be done...

LEGO 12 Days Of Christmas 9 ladies dancing round handbags friends minifigs

10 Lords A-Leaping was where my partner really joined in, and we started to get a bit carried away. We could use real Lords! We found a handful of recognisable Lords, and by 10.30pm had to give it up and go with 'people who might be Lords'...

LEGO 12 Days Of Christmas 10 lords leaping rare minifigs

Making LEGO figures 'Leap' on a tight timescale can be tricky. So we gave the illusion that leaping was imminent...
 
LEGO 12 Days Of Christmas 10 lords vader voldemort whimsy

Our Lords are probably one of the most expensive and Lordly collections of  'minifigures depicting Lords' ever. Egyptian Mummy (ruler), King (ruler), John Lennon (MBE), Lord Nelson (actual Lord) , Lord Whimsy (fictitious Lord), Lord (of the Rings), The Penguin (dresses like a Lord), Lord Voldemort (fictitious Lord), Lord Vader (self-proclaimed Lord), LEGO Lester No.112 (a Lord in my eyes).

LEGO 12 Days Of Christmas 10 lords Lester Light Up Vader

When you are working with so many minifigures it takes a bit of effort to get them all into visible position, and actually you see a lot of head tops, so you do have to mess about a bit to get the effect you want...

LEGO 12 Days Of Christmas 10 lords penguin Lester Light Up Vader

11 Pipers Piping was a bit harder. We had 1 bagpiper and no way of making more, and we didn't know any Pipers. We used anyone potentially musical, a random Bradley Wiggins and a little poetic licence. But they're definitely Pipers!

LEGO 12 Days Of Christmas 11 Pipers Piping bagpipes minifigures

LEGO pipers pipe fitting laying spanner workmen minifigures

By now I couldn't actually use my bedside table - which is where I'd stupidly started the models, and I didn't want to move them because it'd spoil continuity.

LEGO 12 days of Christmas Partridge Tree minifigures

And they all had to move back for the grand finale.
12 Drummers Drumming

We are both big fans of music, so the temptation was irresistible and we had to have 12 real drummers. We got about 8 without really trying, and I Googled while my partner was completing a project he's wanted to do for ages by building a LEGO drum kit...

How to make a LEGO Drum Kit model cowbell hi hat

No new drummers of note were coming up within the last 20 or 30 years (is this really true?). So I decided it was best to do a run down of notable drummers from the 1960's onwards. It has a heavily UK bias, but so does pop...if you want to find out who they are representing, click on the image for a description or 'answers at the bottom of the page'...

LEGO Dave Clarke Of the Dave Clarke 5 and young Mickey Dolenz from the Monkees
 
LEGO Keith Moon from The Rolling Stones and Ringo Starr of The Beatles

LEGO after the party empties

LEGO Ginger Baker of Cream, and Robert Wyatt of Pink Floyd


LEGO Drummers Phil Collins, Rick Allen of Def Leppard and Sheila E

LEGO Dave Grohl (Nirvana/Foo Fighters), Meg White (White Stripes) and Travis Barker of Blink 182

And so, here they are all are. Representing far too many hours swapping out minifig heads and balancing characters on on leg so they can stand at a slanted angle...

The LEGO 12 Days Of Christmas...

LEGO 12th Day Of Christmas Partridge In a pear tree

Now I can have my bedside table back... and start on a new project. After a break...


LEGO Christmas display minifigures birds
How to build a LEGO MOC 12 days of christmas

For anyone who did try to guess, the drummers as shown in order are meant to be: Dave Clarke Of the Dave Clarke 5 and young Mickey Dolenz from the Monkees. Young Keith Moon from The Rolling Stones and Ringo Starr of The Beatles. Ginger Baker of Cream, and Robert Wyatt of Pink Floyd. Representing the 80's we have Phil Collins, Rick Allen of Def Leppard and Sheila E (Prince's backing band). The final row, and the one most people are most likely to get, is Dave Grohl of Nirvana and the Foo Fighters, Meg White of The White Stripes and Travis Barker of Blink 182.

LEGO Dave Grohl on drums  Robert Wyatt

Thank you to Tina from The Soup Dragon Says for the challenge...



Please don't nick my photos, it took me ages.
Ask, or have some fun, play with LEGO and make your own...

21 comments:

  1. I've said it before but I'll say it again - this is so awesome!

    I love the ten lords a leaping best I think although very close second is all the drummers - I actually did recognise a few of them too...

    Also even though I have sung this many, many times I don't think I've ever really realised quite how many birds are actually in it. Why is it all about birds?!

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    1. I didn't realise there'd be so many birds, even though it's a song I already knew off by heart! Why no other animals or creatures? :D
      You are kind - and thank you - your comments have made me smile the whole way :)

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  2. You are most welcome for the challenge, I think I may have enjoyed it as much as you did, as I was always looking each evening to see what entertaining solution you had come up with! I will now have to get my thinking cap on for a new years challenge to keep you on your toes!

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    1. :D Hahaha Pippa has already offered me a challenge - and someone else online suggested the same thing too! I shall have to have a think though :D

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  3. What a fab project! This really made me smile and the 9 Ladies Dancing made me laugh out loud....Well done x

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    1. Thank you! :D It was loads of fun, I really enjoyed doing it, although I've spent the last couple of evenings feeling like I should be doing something :D

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  4. I love it and the amount of effort it took are worth it! Amazing ideas!

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    1. Thank you Eileen! It was a lot of effort, but I really enjoyed it and I'm missing it now :D

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  5. I loved seeing this building up day by day in instagram but reading this makes me realise just how much effort you put into this. I love the inner details and by no means did you cheat with the 5 gold rings or swans. I'm so jealous of Lester mini figure too. My favourite.... has to be the drummers, the sheer underside down trashcans as well as the drum kit is fantastic! Looking forward to the next project.

    Thanks for linking up with #TheLEGOLinky
    Jim

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    1. Awww- sorry I missed this comment at the time! It was great fun, I took this year off - I'm thinking on what to do for Christmas coming up :D

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  6. I loved seeing these, they are fab. Great collection x

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  7. Hi! Would you mind if I share your blog with my twitter group?
    There's a lot of people that I think would really enjoy your content.
    Please let me know. Many thanks

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    1. I genuinely can't tell if this comment is real or spam - but I write it in the hope people will read it, so I'm more than happy for people to see it! :)

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  8. Hello, I enjoy reading through your post. I wanted to write a little comment
    to support you.

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  9. I absolutely think your wonderful and think your 12 days of Xmas deserves to be acknowledged by Lego lovers across the world.. and I being a "newbie".(at the age of..ahem 40!!😁) To the magic of the mini figure collection s... I would pay for your fab creative idea, if I saw it on sale, and use it every Xmas!! I do hope that the Management at Lego, have complemented you for you complementing them!! XX

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    1. Oh bless you. So sorry I didn't spot this comment a couple of years ago! Thank you (if you ever come back!!)

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  10. Late comment, but I was looking for a 12 days of Christmas set and I couldn't find any official sets, but I did find your set, which is amazing. I'm sort of getting back into Legos, and at the same time I thought a 12 days of Christmas set would be nice to pair with my Advent set as a way to maintain the holiday spirit and all.

    I'm wondering where you got some of the rarer pieces and what you used for them, mainly the wings and beaks for the birds and the pipes and drumsticks. I only have a couple random themed sets and a couple of the classic brick collections, but I'm sort of trying to put together the 12 days (or at least 1 representative for each day) before this Christmas.

    Thanks!

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    1. Hiya! Thanks for your comment!I actually dismantled the whole thing, but occasionally a bird turns up in a LEGO tub somewhere :D
      The 'wings' are a standard LEGO piece which is quite common - used quite often in houses (rooves especially) or Chinese dragon scales, and I didn't have enough, so some are plain 2x1 flat plates. The 'feet' were a mishmash of anything that seemed suitable, again regular LEGO. The clawed feet are just the 1x1 with a ring or clip on the end - they are very common and you find them a lot on vehicles. The little pocket money priced Mixels were brilliant for collecting loads of those sorts of pieces, but sadly they were discontinued. I honestly think your best bet is get lots of your little pieces of LEGO and play around. With a number of things, even if they're all slightly different, the effect is multiplied and it can look great, even if you felt 1 alone didn't :D Best of luck! I really want to see photos next Christmas- I'm @thebrickcastle on all social media :)

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    2. The pipes and drumsticks are all again just from other sets and a real mishmash - police batons, railings from houses and the Sea Cow ship - anything that looked about right really!

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