Octopus Overlords

Derek Zoolander: (Looks at the tiny scale model of the proposed center) "What is this?!? A center for ants?!?"
Mugatu: "What?"
Derek Zoolander: "How can we be expected to teach children to learn how to read if they can't even fit inside the building?"

I'm looking for recommendations people might have for display shelving or wall-mounted display cases for painted miniatures. I've seen all kinds of different things online, but wasn't sure if anyone could recommend something specific that they really liked. Miniature scale would be in the 25-32mm range, but if there were spaces to hold larger miniatures that would be fine too. All the minis would be on appropriately sized circular bases.

Anyway, there seem to be tons of options so I'm just looking to narrow them down a bit.

Thanks.

I've been trying to figure this out myself, specifically for my buildings for Zenda. I don't want to leave them out on open shelves because they would get dusty and cobwebby in my basement, and I would love to be able to display some of them with some figures. I'm planning on getting some Ikea shelves, and would love to find a glass fronted display shelf (like a lawyers cabinet, but only one layer) that would fit on top of them that I could store my buildings and figures in. It's a shame to do all of that hard work painting and never see the results.

I'm trying to get the damn things OFF my shelves. Zarathud and I have dropped about a hundred each on KR Multicases over the last few months. I had them lined up on my dresser, window ledges, slow moving neighborhood children....it was getting out of hand.

Look into thimble cases. Make sure you check the dimensions of the slots, though.

hentzau wrote:It's a shame to do all of that hard work painting and never see the results.

Yes, that's how I'm feeling now. Everything is locked away in Feldherr foam cases and it would be really nice to be able to have things displayed in a way that would keep them free from dust and not in danger of being knocked over. I'd think for a building you're looking at a much larger solution - like a display case.

hepcat wrote:I'm trying to get the damn things OFF my shelves. Zarathud and I have dropped about a hundred each on KR Multicases over the last few months. I had them lined up on my dresser, window ledges, slow moving neighborhood children....it was getting out of hand.

You'll miss them when they're hidden away. The cases I have were more about storage and travel, but now that my basement is semi-finished I think I'd like to set some pieces out for display.

I'd be worried about reminding the wife how much has been spent on plastic and metal little dudes. I'm trying to get consolidated into boxes for the prepainted plastic minis and aluminum KR Multicases for the Reaper minis overflow from my Crystal Caste cases.

SAFE Publications offer a great selection of acrylic glass display cases and cabinets to choose from (e.g. here are their miniature display cases, and following Blackhawk's train of thought, here are their thimble display cases).

Those are cool, although I was thinking something more like this. 1 3/4" x 1 3/4" squares would hold almost all 28mm miniatures unless they're posed in a really odd way.

Excellent. I appreciate all the information. There sure are a lot of elements associated with this hobby that I never considered.

What about a basic curio cabinet? Though, since they don't come with a lot of shelves, you'd probably want some way to set up tiers on each shelf. We picked up a pretty decent curio cabinet at Ikea for about $100. The only drawback is the lack of lighting. My brother suggested getting a separate light and then just drilling a small hole in the top for it. I'll probably end up going that route. The battery powered lights we got didn't last very long.

Encase each miniature in 17-foot vitrine, suspended in formaldehyde.