Someone once asked me what I define as a MOC. The one thing that truly defines a MOC is the creator. As long as they did not follow an official set of instructions, or copy someone else’s design piece for piece, they can call it a MOC if they want. Even if all they did was change one piece. But that’s not how I define a MOC. Keep in mind that these loose guidelines are an attempt to express my gut reactions when it comes to such definitions, so they may not cover every situation. Likewise, they are sometimes defined by intent, rather than result.

MOC*:
I define a MOC as anything that’s intended to be a truly original design, even if it’s inspired by someone else’s design, or built using someone else’s basic construction. If you decide to build a twelve inch tall TAHU in an Anime mecha style, that’s a MOC in my book. If you decide to build a new TOA using the basic TOA construction, I’d call that a MOC as well. If two people build the exact same design without ever seeing the other person’s design, both of them can claim them as MOCs, though it might be a little difficult for the second person to convince everyone that they did come up with it on their own. If you copy someone else’s design exactly, it’s still a MOC, but not one of yours.

Modifications:
These are anything where you take someone else’s design and tweak it to make it “better”, but you still consider it to be the same thing. Weapon holders on TOA would be a great example of this. It’s still TAHU, but with a few changes. Giving ONUA a standard neck would be another good example, as would be flipping POHATU’s torso to match the other five TOA. Changing the colors of an USSAL crab would also fall into this category.

Recreations:
This would be anything where you are directly copying someone else’s design. Nearly all of the MATORANS that I showcased during MATORAN MADNESS MONTH were recreations of designs shown in the MNOLG. Someone else came up with the design, but I put it into plastic. If you copy someone else’s MOC, it’d go here as well.

Anyways, if you look back through our Collection Archive, you’ll see that I’ve actually used those three terms where I’ve felt they were appropriate.

* For those who don’t know, MOC stands for M y O wn C reation.