If you have been following us on instagram lately you may have encountered the 90th Aniversary Habitat/MOPs Classic Themes challenge that we have been running in conjunction with Jen @brickfambuilds. The challenge closed this week, and I’d encourage you to checkout the submissions over there following the tags #lego90habitats and #rambling90years in closer detail.

Habitats

It has been a couple of years since I was last involved in a habitat challenge, and I was amazed at how far the format has come over the last couple of years. While so many sophisticated techniques have been utilised over the years, the ‘classic themes’ theme allowed people to use techniques more in line with 70s-90s building, in a shameless fashion. It delighted me to see sets and themes from my childhood come out to play, and especially those elements where the ‘type one’ brick separator had been used. I.e. teeth.

In short…

There were 279 habitats from 87 participants from…15 countries around the world: Australia 🇦🇺 – Belgium 🇧🇪 – Brazil 🇧🇷- Canada 🇨🇦 – Curaçao 🇨🇼 – Denmark 🇩🇰 – Finland 🇫🇮 – Germany 🇩🇪 – Indonesia 🇮🇩- Japan 🇯🇵 – The Phillipines – Netherlands 🇳🇱 – New Zealand 🇳🇿 – Norway 🇳🇴- Poland 🇵🇱 – Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 – Spain 🇪🇸- Turkey 🇹🇷- United Kingdom 🇬🇧 – United States 🇺🇸 (w/ 17 states represented!).

Here are some collages that Jen compiled of the habitats submitted:

As you can see, we have had themes range from Homemaker figures, LEGOLAND (preminifigure), classic Town, Castle, Space, Pirates, Futuron, Blacktron, Ice planet, Spyrius, Futuron, Exploriens, Divers, Western, Paradisa, Rock raiders, Alpha Team, LEGO Island, LEGO Studios, Sports, Power Miners, Aquaraiders, Aquanauts, Belville, Jack Stone, Elves, Ninjago, Nexo Knights, Agents, Clickits The LEGO Movie, LEGO Movie 2, Collectable Minifigures and Fabuland. Surprisingly, nothing from Time Twisters….

You can find all these habitats at this link.

Plenty of entrants made multiple habitats, so that they could create a stack. Here are a few of those:

This was the first of several habitat stacks we received that turned things around…particularly with the reversed top module, effectively recreating 6265: Sabre Island by @patrick_bricksterdam

We classified Entries as Town/Space/Castle or Other. Participants could have 2 entries in any given prize draw, but could (potentially) have entries in every draw. We randomly drew and entry from each classification, using WheelofNames.com during a live stream.

Minifigures On Parade (MOPs) Modules

This is the first time that a challenge using MOPs Modules had been run, with the format only being described for the first time in early July 2022. All entries were valid, but while some entrants embraced the ‘minifigures going somewhere on the road’ aspect, others used it as a simple 8×16 Vignette. However, as the goal was to encourage people to revisit classic themes, I was keen to see how it unfolded. Again, we had a wide range of participants, covering a wide range of themes.

97 MOP modules from 51 participants from 12 countries from around the world: Australia 🇦🇺 – Canada 🇨🇦 – Denmark 🇩🇰 – Japan 🇯🇵 – Netherlands 🇳🇱 – New Zealand 🇳🇿 – Norway 🇳🇴- Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿- Singapore 🇸🇬 – Turkey 🇹🇷- United Kingdom 🇬🇧 – United States 🇺🇸 (w/ 14 states represented!)*

Here are Jen’s collated collages:

I was truly impressed by the way that people created borders for their modules, from simple plates, through to incorporating it in the landscape of the module.

There were a few which truly embraced the Minifigures on Parade/Patrol/pilgrimage idea, and also pushed them to the next level. These are a few that stood out to me, particularly with regard to the way the format was embraced and enhanced:

I love the pirate chief sneaking behind the wall, hidden from the Imperials.

But the way in which the modules were used varied in so many ways:

There were a few like this, but the narrow road give a great opportunity to have cars or go karts posed in a dynamic fashion. If using multiple modules, you can also thin out the action, or have some modules without any minifigures on them.

In the module above,@lilscrapp23 demonstrates how a relatively sparse module can still bring a lot of stray to the format.

Here’s a fantastic example of multiple modules placed together, sharing a common theme. It was so fortunate that the challenge coincided with the Annual Fabuland Scooter Parade…

This image from @okayya encompassed everything about Paradisa: the beach, the cafe, and the distinctive minifigure.

And finally a couple of Awesome parades, with veteran figures marching the streets…

And I appreciated this approach to the literal parade…

Another approach that people used to incorporate a building was to set it up as a castle gate across the pathway:

Now, while I had one idea for how MOPs should work, I was intrigued at how some people ran with the idea. Jaiden (12 yo) from Booyabrix had an innovative idea, to put three themes per module, and then join them together.

Putting them together, we got this, a fitting tribute to LEGO themes from the 80s and 90s.

Another interesting approach to story telling within the MOPs – while not fitting the strict definition brought up an interesting approach to story telling within the format.

As for the habitat modules, we classified Entries as Town/Space/Castle or Other. Participants could have 2 entries in any given prize draw, but could (potentially) have entries in every draw. We randomly drew and entry from each classification, using WheelofNames.com during a live stream.

Overall, I was really excited to see the way that the MOPs format was adopted, and people approached it in an extremely creative way.

The Winners

The prize winners were drawn randomly, as discussed.

Habitat – Town

@Mortonhall_afol

Habitat – Castle

@fabufabmke

Habitat – Space

Bricksartist – submission via email

Habitat Other

@reddsbricks

MOPs Town

@serial.bricker

MOPs Castle

@simonspace70s

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MOPs Space

@jenniferjamjam_afol – brought us four MOPs modules – Aquazone, Castle, Space and Pirates.

MOPs Other

@KBrixBuilder

I would like to thank everyone who took part – your designs were inspirational, and demonstrate such love for the classic LEGO themes that some of us grew up with, and that others were discovering for the first time this week. Congratulations to the prize winners.

Special thanks to Jen from@brickfambuilds. Jen discovered habitat building with my build a habitat for a hero challenge back in 2020, and has been running regular habitat challenges since then. She has made an part of creating a collage and tagging participants a fine art, and I am privileged to have been able to share this event with her.

And thanks to you, dear reader, for making it this far! Take some time to look up the entrants on instagram, and why not try working on a habitat or MOPs module yourself. Until Next time,

Play Well!

Thanks to the AFOL Engagement team from the LEGO Group for support with prizes.