In Advent 2023, after the first week I built an original model of my own design each day using the parts from the Friends and Marvel sets. Here are the instructions to build these models. Like the calendar posts, each of these was originally a separate blog entry, starting with Day 8, and continuing with a daily post from then on out. Now, they are archived in a single post.
For the first week (Days 1-7) I felt that I hadn’t received enough parts yet to do anything very useful so I didn’t try to build a MOC (My Own Creation) for those days, but after that I built a new one for each day starting with Day 8. Now I’m providing instructions for each of these models.
This year I purchased and built two of the available five calendars LEGO has released: Friends and Marvel. You’ll need these, or at least some of the parts from them, if you want to build the MOCs I designed. If you want the other Advent calendars for 2023, here are some links to them on Amazon: City, Harry Potter, and Star Wars. (But please don’t support Harry Potter, due to the transphobic politics of J. K. Rowling.)
Day 8
Here is the first one of these instructions and the list of parts needed. To build it, you’ll need the parts from days 1-8 of both the Friends and Marvel sets, or the same/similar parts from your collection.
Day 9
This is the second in a series of posts sharing instructions to build the MOCs (My Own Creations) that I built on December 8th through 24th (starting in the second week of the Friends and Marvel Advent calendar sets).
For the first week (Days 1-7) I felt that I hadn’t received enough parts yet to do anything very useful so I didn’t try to build a MOC for those days, but after that I built a new one for each day starting with Day 8. Now I’m providing instructions for each of these models. To build it, you’ll need the parts from days 1-9 of both the Friends and Marvel sets, or the same/similar parts from your collection.
Today I’m releasing the instructions for the second such MOC that I made, for day 9, a carnival watergun game.
You’ll also want to include the two minifigures I used, Autumn (Friends Day 1) as the game’s customer/“mark” and Black Widow (Marvel Day 7) as the “carnie.”
Day 10
For day 10 of Advent (December 10th), I designed and built this model of a skid-steer bulldozer, using the parts from the first 10 days of the Friends and Marvel Advent calendar sets.
For the first week (Days 1-7) I felt that I hadn’t received enough parts yet to do anything very useful so I didn’t try to build a MOC (My Own Instructions) for those days, but after that I built a new one for each day starting with Day 8. Now I’m providing instructions for each of these models. To build it, you’ll need the parts from days 1-10 of both the Friends and Marvel sets, or the same/similar parts from your collection.
Commonly associated with the brand name Bobcat, these small tractors are a fixture of small construction sites everywhere. Check out this interesting history of where the Bobcat came from. I built mine as a bulldozer rather than a loader because I wanted to use the snowboard, but I’ve seen Bobcats with a wide variety of attachments. The original Bobcat was a farm machine long before it was discovered to be useful in construction and demolition.
Here are the instructions to build this model, should you be so inclined.
Day 11
Day 11 of the Advent project yielded one of my favorites of all the models, a wind-up toy robot built using the parts I got on the first 11 days of the Friends and Marvel Advent calendar sets. Instructions for it are included below.
This one requires four pages of instructions along with the parts list:
If you build one please share or send me a link! Or if you design your own model using these parts, or a similar toy robot using your own parts of a similar level of complexity…
Day 12
For day 12 of the Advent project the Friends model was a Christmas tree, and I took the green parts from that along with parts from a few other models from the first 12 days of the Friends and Marvel Advent calendar sets, and built a festive wreath. Instructions for it are included below.
Can you spot the part that came from Day 12 of the Marvel calendar? The toolbox! It’s serving as the base to hold up the wreath, in case you want to stand it on a table. You can take off those parts if you want to hang it instead, or pretend the toolbox is a bow. Here are the (single page) instructions and parts list:
If you build one please share or send me a link! Or if you design your own model using these parts, or a similar toy robot using your own parts of a similar level of complexity
Day 13
The second half of the 2023 Advent project started off with Day 13, and my MOC that day was a lizard alebrije using the parts from the Friends and Marvel Advent calendar models acquired thus far. Instructions for it are included below.
The parts I used from the Day 13 models include Okoye’s spear tip and the round “dots” from the Friends set. Here are the two pages of instructions and a parts list:
If you build one please share or send me a link! Or if you design your own model using these parts, or your own idea of an alebrije, let me know!
Day 14
On Advent 2023 Day 14 I posted about a MOC (My Own Creation) of a Zamboni ice conditioner using the parts I’d got thus far from the Friends and Marvel Advent calendars. Here are the instructions to build my MOC from this day, along with the parts list (3 pages total):
Day 15
The original model I built for Advent 2023 Day 15 was of a helicopter, made using the parts I’d got thus far from the Friends and Marvel Advent calendars. Here are the instructions to build my MOC (My Own Creation) from this day, along with the parts list (5 pages total):
This one took a long time to finish: I hadn’t taken good photos or video showing the internals, so I eventually had to reverse-engineer it, and creating instructions for this complex of a model was not trivial. But anyway, here we go.
Day 16
For Advent 2023 Day 16 I had the wacky idea to have Spider-Man be driving a sleigh, made using the parts I’d got thus far from the Friends and Marvel Advent calendars. Here are the instructions to build my MOC (My Own Creation) from this day, along with the parts list (4 pages total):
Since we don’t have any reindeer, I used the dogs and cats we had got from the Friends set, pulled by the spider web parts we had received back on Day 4, but herding cats and dogs rarely goes well. Spidey himself was in the day 3 Marvel calendar of course. The sleigh itself contains a lot of parts from Day 16 however. Here are the instructions and the parts needed to build:
Day 17
Instructions are kind of moot for the Day 17 MOC (My Own Creation) from the 2023 Marvel & Friends Advent Calendars. I don’t have the cape (Cloak of Levitation) available in the program I use to generate instructions, but it’s simple enough I’m sure you could replicate it from the photo, should you feel any desire to build your own Super Sausage Dog Unicorn Guy…
MOC (My Own Creation) that I designed and built from the parts received thus far in LEGO Friends & Marvel Advent calendars, days 1-17.
Day 18
For Advent 2023 Day 18 I couldn’t come up with anything that had a coherent color scheme using the parts I’d got from the first 18 days of the Friends and Marvel Advent calendars, so I built something that doesn’t have to, as the real thing is often brightly decorated in many colors, a tuk-tuk. These function like taxis in places like Thailand and India.
Here are the instructions if you’d like to build one, along with the parts list (4 pages total):
Day 19
When I sat down to build the 19th day model I still faced the same issue with too many colors, and thought to myself, what else is that colorful? Then it came to me, a birbd*! I continued with my builds using the first 19 days of the Friends and Marvel Advent calendars. I have no idea what species this would be, but I think it has some strong birbd energy.
Here are the instructions if you’d like to build one, along with the parts list:
* Why spell it birbd? Because I like it. The spelling birb is a bit more popular, but I like it better with the b and the d.
Day 20
For my 20th day MOC (my original creation) for last Advent I really wanted to get away from the wild colors of the previous two days, and I ended up deciding to use the white parts to make a little bunny out of the parts from the first 20 days of the Friends and Marvel Advent calendars. Of course that resulted in a much smaller model, as I didn’t have that many white parts to work with … but this is what I came up with.
The instructions for this are just one page, plus a page showing the parts:
Day 21
Continuing with the instructions for the Advent models I built in December, here’s the 21st day MOC (my original creation). Again, I chafed under the range of color in the parts from the first 21 days of the Friends and Marvel Advent calendars that I’d gotten thus far, so I built a small model instead, a little airplane.
It’s a very small model, but I think I made some clever uses out of the parts – the wheels holders act as the propeller engines, and the ice skates are the props. The roller skates, meanwhile, serve as landing gear. The instructions and parts for this all fit on just one page:
MOC (My Own Creation) that I designed and built from the parts received thus far in LEGO Friends & Marvel Advent calendars, days 1-21.
Day 22
Here’s the 22nd day MOC (my original creation) made from the first 22 days of the Friends and Marvel Advent calendars. The green plates from the earlier Xmas tree inspired me to build a green (John Deere style) tractor using the small red train wheels from Friends as the blades in a disc plow.
Here are the steps to build this model and the parts needed to build:
Day 23
This is the penultimate of my MOCs (my original creations) that I built in December, on Advent day 23 made from the first 23 days of the Friends and Marvel Advent calendars. This was largely inspired by the 3×3 red plates with a rounded corner which feature in the body and hat. But the main technique featured here is the mixing of odd- and even-width portions on this flat sculpture.
If you want to build it, here are the instructions (2 pages) and the parts needed to build:
Day 24
The Day 24 instructions took a while to put together, wrapping up this series. Using all the parts from all 24 days of the 2023 Friends and Marvel Advent calendars, I built an extra large Xmas tree using mostly parts from the two trees we got earlier in the month from those sets: Marvel Day 24 and Friends Day 12.
The instructions for this one are a little fussy; it would never pass muster as a LEGO set, but that’s what I could come up with given these parts. Each of the 4 sides of the tree’s greenery is in two sub-assemblies, and the lower part is held in place only by the upper part, but there is no stud clutch going on. You have to hold the small sub-assembly in place while you trap it using the larger one.
Here are the instructions and the parts needed to build:
Here’s the whole album of photos of these MOCs and instructions:
