My First MOC Design Ever

I never imagined I would design my own custom LEGO model and handle everything around it—creating instructions, taking promo photos, making videos, building a website, setting up an Etsy shop, and more. But it has been an incredibly fun journey, and I enjoy every second of my LEGO passion.

Do you know the board game Brass: Birmingham? It’s set during the Industrial Revolution in England, where you build different types of buildings to earn money and points. I love the game’s atmosphere, and I think it inspired me to design a model based on the Industrial Revolution. The architecture from that era—brick, steel, and glass—has a strong visual appeal, and I found a lot of great inspiration on Pinterest. If you're designing a LEGO MOC, I highly recommend using Pinterest for research. It's a great place to gather and organize inspiration—I have dozens of private boards filled with ideas for future projects.

I didn’t try to replicate a real-world factory but instead combined ideas from different historical factories and added my own LEGO-style touches. I first built the entire model with real LEGO bricks before transferring it to BrickLink Studio. While I find building with physical bricks much more enjoyable, it’s also more expensive and time-consuming since I have to wait for brick orders to arrive. I sourced all the pieces from LEGO’s official Pick a Brick service.

It took me about 3–4 months to complete the model—partly because it was my first, and I was learning everything from scratch. I submitted it to the BrickLink Designer Program, but the competition is always incredibly tough, and I didn’t win.

"Now, I’m already working on my fifth MOC model, and the process is much faster since I’ve gained experience and refined my workflow. I’m still at the beginning of my journey as a LEGO MOC designer, but it’s taking up more of my time each week—and I love it.

You can now buy instructions for my first LEGO MOC model, Glass Factory, on my website or Rebrickable. Happy building!