Ultimate Guide to LEGO MOC Building for Beginners
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A beginner's map of LEGO MOC building, your own LEGO designs, covering the parts to start with, the free software, the core techniques, good first projects, where to buy parts, and which of our deeper guides to read next.
A MOC, short for My Own Creation, is any LEGO model you design yourself instead of building from official instructions. You do not need a large collection or special tools to start: a varied pile of bricks, a small first project and a few core techniques are enough. This guide is the map. It covers each step briefly and points to our deeper guides for the parts you want to dig into.
Starter parts
Variety beats quantity. A useful starting mix has plenty of bricks and plates in a few colors, tiles for smooth surfaces, slopes, and a handful of brackets, hinges and clips for building sideways and at angles. Sets you have already built are a good source; taking one apart and building something else from it is a classic first MOC. If you are starting from scratch, LEGO's Classic boxes are made for open-ended building. Prices, piece counts and retirement status come from our catalog when this page loads.
The Large Creative Brick Box: 790 pieces in 33 colors, with windows and doors for building houses and scenes.
The Medium Creative Brick Box: 484 pieces in 35 colors, with windows, eyes and plenty of wheels. A smaller, cheaper start.
Creative Vehicles: 900 pieces including 52 wheels, with simple guides for a first few vehicles, then as many of your own as the parts allow.
A Creator 3in1 set like the Medieval Horse Knight Castle shows one box of parts becoming three different models, which is good practice for thinking like a MOC builder.
For a deeper look at which sets give the most useful parts, see our guide to the best LEGO sets for MOC parts.
Tools
- Brick separator. It saves fingernails and the edges of plates.
- Sorting. You do not need much, but finding the right part quickly makes building far more fun. Our guide to sorting and organizing LEGO and our free Sorting Planner help.
- Design software (optional). BrickLink Studio is free for Windows and macOS and comes from the LEGO Group. It builds digitally, renders, makes instructions and exports a parts list. LEGO Digital Designer was discontinued in January 2022, so use Studio instead. Our Studio tutorial and Mecabricks guide cover the options, and our free LDraw 3D Viewer opens LDraw models in the browser.
Core techniques
- Overlap for strength. Stagger bricks and plates across joints, as in a brick wall, so the model holds together when you pick it up. Our structural engineering guide goes further.
- SNOT, Studs Not On Top. Brackets and bricks with studs on the side let you attach parts sideways for smooth walls, details and shapes. See our SNOT guide.
- A small color palette. A main color, a second color and an accent read better than every color at once. See our color theory guide.
- Texture and detail. Mix tiles, plates, grilles and small parts to make surfaces interesting. See our greebling guide.
Good first projects
- A vignette on a small base, such as a corner of a room or a street, with one or two minifigures. It teaches detail and storytelling with few parts.
- A vehicle at minifigure scale. Our vehicle guide covers widths and chassis.
- A rebuild of a set you own into something different, using only its parts.
- A microscale model of a building you know. See our microscale guide.
When you are ready for something larger, our step-by-step guide to planning your first MOC and our guide to MOC buildings take over from here, and our scaling guide helps you pick a scale.
Buying the parts you are missing
BrickLink, the parts marketplace owned by the LEGO Group since 2019, sells individual parts from many independent stores; a parts list exported from Studio can be uploaded as a Wanted List. LEGO's own Pick a Brick sells individual elements too. Our guide to sourcing parts for a MOC compares them, and our BrickLink buying guide explains how to order without paying shipping to a dozen stores.
Sharing your builds
Fan forums, local LEGO user groups and social media are where MOC builders share work and get feedback. Our guides to LEGO communities, local LEGO user groups and photographing your MOCs cover where and how. If you share online, LEGO's Fair Play page asks fans never to use the LEGO logo on an unofficial website and to use LEGO as an adjective, as in "LEGO bricks", rather than as a plural noun.
Use Our Tools to Go Further
Get more insights about the sets mentioned in this article with our free LEGO tools