Crack the whip.
December 18: Cyclops-drawn Toboggan
This is probably supposed to be a cute reindeer pulling a sleigh, but it is not.
Rating
Fun ★★☆☆☆
I’m a little bit afraid. This horned creature is like a cross between a moose and a steam locomotive, and I can’t tell if it has 0 or 1 eyes. That’s not a question I should have after building it, and neither answer is great. I want to like that it has trailer hitch functionality, and it could be fun in some context, but the trailer connects directly to the hobbles between the creature’s legs (?) and there isn’t even enough room between the firewall and the moose’s hind parts for it to get into a gallop. Looking at it for too long makes the stars fall off the fun meter like the peak of the Geminids.
Ease of Build ★★★★☆
It was fine. I initially had a hard time reconciling the picture with the bag of parts because I thought it was going to be bigger than it was, like big enough for a Lego person to ride, but it’s not. Also I believe that there are at least four shades of brown on the mutant caribou. If I’m using these paint swatches correctly, I believe the colors are
- Torso: Expresso Beans
- Legs: Dirt Pile at Dusk
- Snout and/or Cycloptic Eye: Dr. Rusty Gudgeon
- Antlers: Amber Poupon
Wait, or are these the winners of the Belmont Stakes during the Great War? Regardless, the color wasn’t that important to the ease of the build, because the shapes were different.
Comprehensibility ★★☆☆☆
I think the biggest barrier to comprehension here is my old Lego Advent Calendar nemesis: scale. Is this supposed to be Santa’s Sleigh? Or is it a toy sleigh for the Lego children to play with? Or neither?
Is it even a sleigh at all? In my head, a sleigh needs blades, in the style of the blades on a Flexible Flyer sled. This appears to have no blades, nor the impression of blades—it’s like they went out of their way to make sure that the aft gray piece below the green boot stripe wasn’t even rectangular so that the line where a blade might be would be visually broken. I think with no blades, this is actually a toboggan. Or maybe a sledge? I have no idea what a sledge is (outside of the hammer context) but it certainly sounds like a blunt object, and possibly British.
And don’t even get me started on the shuffling madness of the locomotive moose.
Extra Parts ★☆☆☆☆
This prize came with an extra round thing, in the color Dr. Rusty Gudgeon.
Overall ★★☆☆☆
At least it was something to build and not another random trinket. A lot of these parts are generic enough that they could easily be reused in custom creations, too. For example, the antlers will make a great bat’leth if Lego Advent ever goes Klingon.
