Help! How do you store your minis?

[Alchemist]

Since I started collecting miniatures back in August or so I\'ve gone from 0 to, I don\'t know, a couple hundred figures (and $1,000+! ouch). I never imagined that I would get this into it but, voila, there you have it. Anyways, for storage purposes I started with a shoebox then moved on to cheap plastic \"bead boxes\" from Michaels. I\'ve found those to be reasonably useful for carrying minis to a game session, but they\'re less practical for at-home use. Right now I have about a dozen minis scattered on my desk, a bunch of boxsets on my file cabinet, a bookshelf filled with minis, and a bunch of various kinds of boxes filled up. My office is kind of a mess and, what\'s worse, doesn\'t look all that professional, especially considering I\'m a high school teacher!

I\'ve looked in various hardware stores and haven\'t found anything that looks all that good (although this looks useful); I plan on looking through Dickblick.com but haven\'t checked yet. Money is somewhat of a concern (I\'d rather save my extra cash for more minis!), but basically what I am looking for is some kind of container that allows me to easily access minis, keeps them safe, and is good for putting figures in at various stages of production. You know the drill.

What do you use? Recommendations? Can you post pictures?

Thanks!

 

[matty1001]

A plastic bag half full.

I\'m considering upgrading to a bag for life as the one I currently use is getting a few holes in it.

Peace and love...

 

[NGArtStudios]

To be completely honest I don\'t think there is one kind of problem solving storage device. I have more minis than I can paint in a life time (I\'m in my 20\'s) and have utilized every type of storage idea you can possibly think of. From extra shelving, closed storage cabinets, racks, to plastic boxes and I still have boxes, blisters and random minis all over the place.

My best piece of advice is that if you are fortunate enough to have the extra space, set aside a closet, or if you are very fortunate a whole room for your minis as well as all the hobby supplies that go with it. What I have ended up doing is just packing everything in boxes and setting those in a corner, leaving the minis I am most likely to work on next on my desk. (Which is another mess of it\'s own.)

 

[DarkStar]

I use stackable plastic drawers. They\'re about 4 inches deep by 12 inches long per drawer, with 3 drawers per unit. A single drawer can hold a good deal of minis. Several whole units of warhammer or 40k, with vehicles, or scores of singles can fit in each drawer. If you like, you can use a label maker to put labels on each drawer to organize, that sort of thing.

It\'s like, one of those foggy clear tupperware types of plastic. Slide out the drawer, put the mini in, close drawer. Stackable so you can just add more as you go. Probably got them at wal-mart or target or someplace like that, can\'t recall.

 

[docwex]

3 words: Sporting Goods Store!

It takes a little patience, but look in your local SGS or at places like K-Mart and Sears that sell fishing tackle boxes. I have 3 fairly large ones (Plano products makes some biggies) and with some silicone glue and lots of extra \'dividers\' for the drawers and spaces, each one can hold over 100 minis, some as large as Mithril ents and giants. It takes a little work, but if you use some foam to pad the compartments and use silicone glue, the boxes last for years. My oldest at this point has been home to my orc army for over 10 years.

 

[mickc22]

Another 3 words: Don\'t be cheap!



There are plenty of companies that make army transport cases, I\'ve gone the route of tackle boxes, tool cases etc, and nothing does the job as well as the thing that was made to do it

You\'ve spent over $1K on your minis aren\'t they worth looking after properly?

 

[freakinacage]

i don\'t game so the bulk of my minis are \'in progress\' and dumped all over my desk etc. the few that are actually finished are in the small clear ferrero rocher boxed on my shelf like this one:

they\'re great as you can fit some fairly large minis in them, they are stackable, if you want one, you have to eat a load of choccies to get them and if you want a load for free, there are tone about at xmas

*edit* they are glue tacked to the lid btw so the box is essentially upside down to normal

 

[darklord]

Tim, with these containers you are really spoiling us.

price of ferrero roche would be cheaper to buy a transport case! they are handy though i have one of those somewhere

 

[slah]

-Those I bought on a whim: BIG cardboardboxes in the cellar.

-Those I plan to do something about (within a 5-year span): Smaller cardboardboxes in the living room.

- Those I´m working on at the moment: Big mess on the desk

-Finished models: ?

 

[freakinacage]

Originally posted by darklord
Tim, with these containers you are really spoiling us.

price of ferrero roche would be cheaper to buy a transport case! they are handy though i have one of those somewhere

har har lol
i don\'t really use them for transportation as they are a little frail, but i have about 6 and i haven\'t paid for any yet. they are nice and clear too

 

[Alchemist]

LOL. Seems like I\'m not alone in my \"problem\" and that the universal answer is \"Whatever I can pull together from anything that\'s around me.\"

Mickc22, luckily I don\'t need to transport an army--I don\'t play wargames, only RPGs, so only need to ever transport a small amount at once--no more than two dozen. For that, a foam-padded bead box works fine.

 

[airhead]

for display / storage, a typesetters try works well.

As an RPG\'er from way back, and a DM that had to bring all the monsters...My favorite is a parts bin:

Various bins will have 2 or 3 sizes of drawers to hold odd sized monsters.

Two bins, a latch, a piano hinge, pop rivets, and a couple of suitcase handles and you have a portable unit that won\'t open and spill the drawers out.

 

[squidders]

if you\'re really tight... egg boxes.

cheap as hell and hold 6 minis (or get bigger egg boxes for more minis)

 

[matty1001]

Originally posted by freakinacage
i don\'t game so the bulk of my minis are \'in progress\' and dumped all over my desk

Can you see ANY of the surface of your desk yet, a year on since I last seen it? Or is it still just a tangle of pewter limbs!?

Peace and love...

 

[BarstoolProphet]

If there is a drawer... There are minis.
If there is a shelf... There are minis.
If there is a box, it is filled with minis.
If there is a flat surface on it... minis.
If something pointy can be jabbed into it..
Surely a mini with a pointy weapon is there.
If there is drywall, and painting has gone very badly ... minis.
In the CD ROM tray of my computer... minis.
Spinning on my record player (flat surface, remember)... minis.
Dangling from strings attached to the ceiling, the lights, the doors... minis.

By the way... if you ever visit my place... don\'t take your shoes off... minis.

 

[Alchemist]

Originally posted by BarstoolProphet
If there is a drawer... There are minis.
If there is a shelf... There are minis.
If there is a box, it is filled with minis.
If there is a flat surface on it... minis.
If something pointy can be jabbed into it..
Surely a mini with a pointy weapon is there.
If there is drywall, and painting has gone very badly ... minis.
In the CD ROM tray of my computer... minis.
Spinning on my record player (flat surface, remember)... minis.
Dangling from strings attached to the ceiling, the lights, the doors... minis.

By the way... if you ever visit my place... don\'t take your shoes off... minis.

Funny. I never thought of minis-as-caltrops, but I guess they\'d work.

 

[ScottRadom]

HA! Nice one Barstool Prophet!

For me, it\'s GW mini cases for painted stuff I like, shelves or random places in tha garage for the rest, and as of late eBay!

Unpainted is similar to the Prophet\'s style.

 

[waghorn41]

I wanted to buy some extra foam trays from GW but they\'re not available without a case in the UK. So I went to a specialist manufacturer locally and gave them a similar design to produce. Had to buy a huge quantity to keep the price down but sold what I didn\'t need on ebay. I charged GBP£11 for 3 trays plus p+p. A local hobby store bought a load and sold them at GBP£4.50 each. The foam is a bit stiffer than GW\'s and only 32 slots for foot figures instead of 36. But then I had some larger ones made at the same time for cavalry/bikes, 16 slots and a bit deeper. All made to fit in a standard GW case; 3 foot/2 foot + 1 cav/or, at a squeeze, 1 foot and 2 cav. I ended up shipping worldwide!
I sold the surplus at cost, I wasn\'t doing it as a business, just wanted to get my money back.