How we work with and support creators

Building a startup with the Creator in mind

As we've been thinking about how to get our startup, EasternBrick, off the ground, we've been talking to many MOC (My Own Creation) designers across the world who are all passionate about building things with legos and sharing their designs with the lego community. But through all of the highly opinionated and passionate discussions we've been having, we've found that there are a few common threads when it comes to the challenges faced by Creators across the globe.

1. Creators are regularly having their work stolen

Mine! Thank you very much.

The most obvious challenge that we knew of even before talking to any creator, was that their designs are often stolen and turned into sets that can be purchased, usually through AliExpress, Taobao or the like. Whilst this can make it easier for regular people (who are willing to take the risk with these sellers) to purchase the parts they need to build a Creator's design, the Creator themselves never see any reward for their creations, with all proceeds going to the company that stole the designs.

To further add insult to injury, because the instructions are just stolen outright and distributed freely, unknowing customers who purchase the sets from unscrupulous no face brands don't realise and will contact the original creator if they need support on the build. This leaves the Creator left having to provide support to a customer who hasn't paid them for their build instructions.

It can be really demotivating to know that the company who stole your designs are also directing their customers to you to provide free support. We've heard many Creators consider not continuing to share their instructions because of this, which is a real loss to the community as a whole.

How we're addressing this

At EB, we're looking to flip the script and are working directly with Creators to help promote and sell their sets and most importantly get them rewarded for their efforts. We're also providing support to customers who purchase the sets and are having issues, rather than the Creator dealing with these requests themselves. This allows the Creator to focus on what they do best - creating awesome builds.

Our first set is in collaboration with Nicola Stocchi (aka SerialBuilder) which you can find here.

2. It's highly competitive to get their work chosen to become an official Lego set

To win, you need to support yourself get to the top

Lego have 2 specific platforms that allow MOC designers to get their work chosen to become an official Lego set, Lego IDEAS and the BrickLink Designer Program.

The IDEAS line is a platform that crowdsources designs from the community and then the community place their votes on which sets they'd like to see produced. Whilst in theory, this is a great initiative and we've seen some really cool sets come from the IDEAS platform, the designs must adhere to some strict rules and until only recently were limited to 3,000 parts (5,000 as of 2025). There are also a bunch of other rules, such as certain themes being off-limits and if Lego is internally already working on a set that's similar to a Creator's set, tough luck for the Creator.

The BrickLink Designer Program is surprisingly even more restrictive in the sense that most sets being chosen to become official sets are those that complement existing Lego sets or look like they were designed by Lego designers, so it's almost impossible to stray from the themes that Lego are interested in. This makes it hard for a Creator to really show off their creativity as going too far from what Lego is looking for will not likely get your design chosen.

How we're addressing this

Although it's impossible to not have some level of ego, we don't really want to get in the way of the Creator and are here to support them, rather than the other way round. You want to make a huge 10,000 piece set? Go for it! You want to build something that's not super child-friendly? We have no issues with that. Want to create an entirely new part? Hmm, throw us a challenge why don't you - we're open to exploring it with you.

3. It's not easy for customers to acquire everything they need to build the Creator's design

Finding the right parts can be a little overwhelming

Whilst the process of developing instructions for a particular design is fairly well laid out, the other half of the equation - a customer acquiring the parts and building the set for themselves - is not really well supported.

If you're a Lego purist, first of all, what are you doing here? JK, thanks for showing up! As you may well know, there are a few ways to purchase official parts, through Lego's Pick-A-Brick platform or through a marketplace like BrickLink where you can buy parts from sellers around the world. The problem with these two methods is that the costs really start to mount and ordering parts from different sellers - which is usually the case if you want to secure 100% of the parts - requires additional shipping charges for each seller. Sometimes, the parts are just not available, so you end up having to spend even more due to it being a rarer part. This is not a fun process, particularly if you just want to build a Creator's set. In the end, taking this approach ends up costing more than it would to purchase an official set, which makes it less appealing since we all know that Lego sets can be pretty unreasonably priced.

The other option is to source alternative lego parts, which is generally legal ever since the patents ran out more than 30 years ago. The challenge however, is that these alternate parts comes in very different flavours, ranging from pretty high quality and nearly indistinguishable to official Lego parts, aside from the missing logo, to being downright awful with low adherence to tolerances resulting in either very loose fits, or too tight, causing parts to just become permanently stuck and sometimes even resulting in bleeding fingers. It's not easy for a customer to source the right bricks and to have the confidence that the quality will be up to par.

How we're addressing this

One of our main goals at EB is to close this gap and provide a central location for customers to purchase both instructions and the necessary parts to build the set all together in one place, transforming the process to source for and create MOCs. You shouldn't have to go out there and source the bricks on your own. Since we're all about high quality, the parts that we provide will only be the best alternative lego parts that match the official parts. Anything less won't make it into our sets.

To sum it all up

At EasternBrick, we are committing ourselves to the following:

1. Creating a platform for Creators to build whatever they want and help them get rewarded for their efforts.

2. To not place strict limitations on the types of builds - if it's truly impressive and of high quality, we're very interested in helping to share it with the community.