Designing your own LEGO MOCs: finding ideas, digital design and sourcing parts
TUREFF• •0
A MOC, short for My Own Creation, is any model you design yourself rather than build from official instructions. It might be a small vignette on a few studs, a modified version of a set, or a whole town. LEGO is a trademark of the LEGO Group; MOCs are simply what fans call their own designs. This guide covers how to get started.
Where ideas come from
- Start small. A vignette, a tiny scene on a base of around six by six studs, teaches you a lot about techniques without needing thousands of parts.
- Modify a set you own. Add an interior, extend a building, change a vehicle's colour scheme. This is a gentle way to start designing.
- Build from photographs. Real buildings, machines and landscapes are the best source of shapes and details. Collect reference pictures before you begin.
- Learn techniques from others. Look at how experienced builders get curves, angles and textures. Studs not on top, or SNOT, building sideways using brackets and bricks with studs on the side, opens up a lot of possibilities.
- Set a constraint. Only one colour, only the parts from one set, or a fixed size. Limits often produce better ideas than a blank page.
Building physically or digitally
Many builders sketch ideas with real bricks, especially for anything that has to be strong or move. Physical building shows you straight away whether something holds together.
Digital design software lets you build with an unlimited supply of virtual parts in any colour. BrickLink Studio is free software for Windows and macOS that the LEGO Group named as its official digital building tool when it replaced the older LEGO Digital Designer. It can make building instructions and rendered images and can check which parts you need. Other free fan-made programs exist too, often based on the long-running LDraw parts library.
Digital building has quirks to keep in mind.
- Software does not test strength. A design that looks fine on screen can fall apart in your hands, especially with SNOT and floating sections.
- Some combinations are not possible in real life, either because parts collide in ways the software misses, or because the part was never made in that colour.
- Illegal connections, which stress or bend parts, may be allowed digitally. The official design teams avoid them, and it is good practice for you to do the same.
Sourcing parts
Once you know what you need, there are several routes.
- Your own collection. Sort what you have first so you know what is missing.
- LEGO's Pick a Brick service, which sells individual new elements in current production. Not every part or colour is available.
- Independent online marketplaces, where many sellers list new and used parts, including retired ones. Many builders upload a parts list from their design software to these marketplaces to find what is in stock.
- Bulk lots and second-hand sets, which can be a cheap way to build up a general stock of common pieces.
- Swaps with other builders at clubs and events.
Compare total costs including postage. Ordering many small lots from different sellers can add up quickly. It is often worth tweaking a design to use a more common colour of a rare part.
Sharing your MOC
Photograph it against a plain background with soft, even light. Fan websites let you publish photos and sometimes instructions, and some people sell instructions for their designs. Note that building and showing a MOC is one thing, but using official logos or branding to sell something is another, so check the rules of the platform you use.
A first project
Choose a single room, vehicle or corner of a scene, give yourself a limit on size, and try to finish it within a week. Finishing small projects builds skill faster than starting large ones.
What was your first MOC, and what did you learn making it? Share your experience or questions in the comments.