The Main Piece:
The place to start is with a sunken ship. Luckily we had a good bulky piece in storage from an 80s era pirate set.
As you can see, the ship is not in good shape. Its almost 30 years old, so I've lost the instructions and most of the pieces for it, including the sail. (Which is a shame because these old sets appreciate in value more than gold.) But you are trying to recreate a wreck, it actually works better when you are missing some of the pieces. If you don't have any pirate ships from the 80s, you can try a few things. Possible builds include a partial castle, shell formations, or trying your own ship. Remember, the less perfect it looks the better! You can also borrow some of your plants to act as sea weed. Going from the left to right in my picture you see a red bush, bamboo, a leaf, and some green bushes. These add some good flavor to the ship and were just some random pieces we had from other sets.
The Figures:
You see some minfigures as well. If you aren't an avid mini figure collector like me it can get a bit more tricky but its still doable. As the name implies, a good place to start is the under water starter set. Its only 8.50 on Amazon right now. The deep water version comes with some scuba divers and a little submarine as well as some plants and a shark.
For the poor unfortunate souls we used a ghoul, ghost, and a zombie pirate from the Halloween minifigure line. This is no longer active, so its a bit expensive, about 6 dollars per figure, if you get them online. You might try anything scary or spooky that you already have on hand. The old castle sets from the 90s, for example, included a glow in the dark ghost. At the end of the day you can always just turn the heads around for any lost or zombie figures. The blank face can be surprisingly effective, even on a ginger bread man!!!
The Ariel and Ursula figures are also a bit tricky. Those are from the Disney Minifigure line. It was wildly popular earlier this summer and are now sold out. (Though I did hear Lego might release more because of the new ginormous Disney Castle. If that is the case, they are only 4 dollars. Find a Ninja to make sure you get what you want!) They are pretty cool so they might be worth grabbing on Amazon or Ebay for more. Currently, they sell for about 10 dollars each on Amazon. You might just want to try this Lego Junior Set.
As you can see, you get a ton of items for only 15 dollars and I've seen it on sale at Walmart for 12! It includes a slightly different Ariel than the Disney minifigure line, plus Flounder. (I think anyway, its been awhile since I've seen the movie, so I'm a bit iffy on the names!) You also receive an oyster, a dolphin, and a little mini house and sea cart. If you don't want to go that route, you can use any princess figure. I'm sure your daughter has one that she thinks is cute. Anything with a luscious hair piece, in pink, or wearing a bathing suit would work! Though given the value of this junior set, it might be worth springing for the 15 dollars.
The final piece is her bodyguard, Aquaman!! He is currently selling for about 7 dollars (plus free shipping on Ebay.) Of course, when you start to buy all these specialized minifigures it can get expensive. So you might just want to grab anything that looks good for the sea. You can get a pirate figure and put a net or trident in his hand. You might keep an eye out for the Justice League movie and see if there is a good value set including him. You don't totally need a bodyguard for Ariel. But being a guy, I had to spice up my daughter's set a bit.
There you go. The amount of money you spent is totally up to you. Most of the set can be made based on whats in your storage. You only need about 100 pieces for the sunken castle or ship, some foliage pieces, a princessy figure, and some scary figures with their heads turned around. You can go a bit deeper and make the Lego Junior or Starter Set the main draw for your child, (mine loves when she gets something at the store) and then build the entire under water adventure when you get home. You might also get some specialized figures depending on how much you want to spend, or if the Disney minifigures are available again. This could be your Christmas strategy. A way to have a 100 dollar set while spending a fraction of that amount. Whatever you end up doing, at the end of the day you are looking at hours of fun spent with your child, a great under water adventure set you can look at, and you've spent 20 dollars or less!! That's being a Lego Ninja!!
Good luck ninjas, and remember to check my facebook page often! I don't create many posts because I'm too busy building Legos! But I give short updates concerning sales and deals rather often. There is a new minifigure site opening, and I've already won a free figure, and there are at least ten more giveaways tomorrow.
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