Well I've had another go at this and think I've gotten a technique which is fiddly but works. My joins are still pretty ugly but I'm confident my next one will look better and after I get some heatshrink on I don't think it'll look too bad.
I used my new helping hands to get the transistor and my new leg in place. Then used some really thin wire from a stranded cable to wrap around.
First wrap around the leg. This pretty much locked them in place together and it was much easier to get the other wraps on.
All wrapped up and ready to solder
After soldering. It's still pretty ugly but not as bad as attempt number one on the top leg. Attempt number two was the bottom leg.
It looks worse all zoomed in like this than it actually is. The main thing is that they feel really sturdy, I'm not too concerned about it coming apart when I solder the transistor onto a board and the import bit is it still works. I had my doubts tbh.
It's a 2sb175 with a hfe of 71 and a leakage of 0.039
I just need to find my heatshrink now and then have a go at another one. I think these could look pretty tidy once I get my technique down.
Major thanks to
@Nostradoomus for pointing me in the right direction. I was trying snipped resistor legs but they were much too large and more of a challenge than the super fine wire I ended up using.