MOC: CMF Display Stand (Collectable Minifigures)

[Lucifer Adams]

Hi everyone! I finally got around to taking some new photos of my CMF stand.

I adore CMFs and they are actually the reason I got back into LEGO as an adult, following a chance purchase of a single series 4 pack whilst out shopping (Kimono Girl, you have a special place in my heart).

As LEGO fans, we must all have more Minifigures than we know what to do with, so I'm curious as to what everyone else does with theirs?

For me, I started simply enough with a single-tiered stand that just grew and grew with each new series.

The stand is currently 55cm high, 37cm deep and it is 54.5cm wide.

I have made several modifications to the design as the stand has evolved. Once it became too big and heavy to move easily, I broke it down and made it modular. It currently is made up of THREE modular pieces: -

1) Series 1 - 5

2) Series 6 - 11

3) The 'raiser'

The 'Raiser' has seven jumper plates on top, which are used to hold series 6-11 in place.

Series 1-5 then neatly slides up against the front of the 'raiser' to give the illusion of one large stand but allows me to move it easily for dusting and display purposes.

The back of all the three modules features 1x2 Technic bricks with holes, so when a new series comes out, I can just 'bolt on' a new tier with Technic pins. This saves me from having to take the whole thing apart and rebuild for each new tier.

The name plates are made by putting custom stickers onto 1x4 white tiles. The 'series' tiles are a little more complicated in terms of sticker design but follow the same principle as the name plates and are put onto 2x2 white tiles. The custom stickers are simply designed in Microsoft Word and then printed onto clear adhesive/sticker paper (it comes in A4 sheets) via my office printer, cut to size and applied to LEGO tiles.

One of the things that this stand allows me to do is to add some dynamic posing for those characters that imply movement or that are an unusual size, or that have accessories that would look better in use. For example: -

The Sky Diver looks fine standing straight up, but he looks even better when in free-fall!

Medusa's tail is so long that I had to make a hole to allow it to poke out the back. I would be especially interested to hear how people who frame and hang their Minifigures have handled Medusa.

Adding a Hinge Brick (a.k.a. Rocker Plate) allowed me to angle the Snowboarders and Surfers and let them not only ride their boards, but do it at dynamic angles. This is much more preferable than standing them straight up with their board held in their hand (framed Minifigures again).

Putting the Ice Skates on Series 4's Hockey Player and Ice Skater means that they can no longer attach to a plate. I got around this by putting a Technic half-pin into the back of their legs to hold them in place over a tile. The Technic pin goes onto a 'tap' and the 'tap' attaches to the stand.

So there it is. Series 12 is looming and soon this stand will have one more tier. I do not have room for many more tiers, so I am quite pleased that LEGO have slowed down with the release of these CMFs.

I have custom display stands for the LEGO Movie Minifigures and also for Team GB, so look for them on here soon. I'm currently working on a Simpsons display stand but am only at a very early design stage in LDD.

How do you display your Minifigures? I'd love to know. Thanks for looking! You can view the full album on Flickr HERE.

Edited July 23, 2014 by Lucifer Adams

[K-Nut]

Nice looking display there! I like the methods you used to display some figures. The Skydiver does look great in free fall. It's cool how you designed it for easy transport too. I personally uses these. I put six up top on stands taped to the floor, five below it, and five below that. I haven't boxed up Series 10 or 11 yet, so I may have some issues with the Medusa tail. Nice work on this! I look forward to seeing more of your work.

[kinggregus]

This is by far the most convincing minifigure display I have seen. Very nice job.

[Mutant Orc]

Wow!!! Its great to see a nice display like this!! It's really clever how you managed to overcome certain obstacles in such subtle ways.

[AmperZand]

Very clever design! I especially like the way you made it modular with the 'raiser'.

I collect minifigures generally and only those CMFs that interest me. So rather than having my CMFs arranged by series, I have them grouped thematically with other minifigures. I display them on white Ikea shelf units with white or glass shelves depending on the unit's depth and the required viewing angle. Fitting larger minifigures such as Medusa and bigfigs such as the LotR Cave Troll on the shelves isn't a problem.

To keep the minifigures from falling over, I attach them to plates. Here's an example I took off the shelf where it is normally displayed to make it easier to photograph. It shows the CMF Musketeer with three others I MOCed attached to the plate on which they're displayed:

I have a few hundred minifigures in my display collection, mostly historical or fantasy.

Edited July 7, 2014 by AmperZand

[fred67]

That's a very cool and impressive display stand! I really like the additions of the labels and, yes, I also like what you've done to customize it for some specific figures.

Nice looking display there! I like the methods you used to display some figures. The Skydiver does look great in free fall. It's cool how you designed it for easy transport too. I personally uses these. I put six up top on stands taped to the floor, five below it, and five below that. I haven't boxed up Series 10 or 11 yet, so I may have some issues with the Medusa tail. Nice work on this! I look forward to seeing more of your work.

This is also what I use; I don't have any recent pictures, but there are threads (here and here) on minifigure displays. Some are using special cases, but others are a mix of some commercial product and a stand made from LEGO for the figures.

I prefer the container store display boxes because they keep the minifigures dust free, and you can densely pack them... 32 to a box so that you can display two full sets in each one.

DSCF1457 by FredJH, on Flickr

They're also stackable.

DSCF0851 by FredJH, on Flickr

Edited July 7, 2014 by fred67

[CCarmichael89]

How did you manage to secure the Skier from Series 2? This is the only one I have had problems with

[Lucifer Adams]

Thanks everyone for the really kind feedback!

AmperZand, grouping your figs by theme is a really cool idea! I bet your Monsters all look cool together!

K-Nut and Fred67, I am really leaning towards these myself. The dust issue is just getting too much. It takes nearly an hour to dust this damn thing! I'm considering breaking it up and modifying the stand to fit inside these kinds of boxes. Thanks especially for the pics, Fred.

CCarmichael89, I had taken a photo of a Skier but it was really poor quality. The Skiers are quite tricky to get into place but I found a way that works. First I trim off a couple of plates from the wall behind where the skis will go, just like I did for Medusa. That means the back of the Skis can go through the back wall and bring the legs nearly flush with it. Then I use a similar idea to the Skaters but this time I put a single 1x1 brick with stud in the wall and add a couple of black 1x1 round plates to that stud. I then attach this horizontal 'peg' into one of the holes in back of the Skier's legs. You can experiment by adding and taking away the 1x1 round plates to move the Skier forward and backwards.

[CCarmichael89]

Thanks very much.

I take it that the half technic pin doesn't go fully into the back of the Skater's leg as I use display cases but when I've tried your method of attaching the skater to the pin, and it doesn't quite fit.

Also what template do you use for the 'series' labels as I can't seem to get it right?

In terms of display cases I use the cases at: brickdisplaycase.com (sorry not able to add hyperlink)

[Kyky]

Great way to show them :)

[Blue_Bird]

That's a great way to display them. I just have my minifigures standing on a small table, there's nowhere near as many as you have. I plan on eventually getting these to display them:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00X6AVG2M?colid=3U3L0KB6MUSI7&coliid=INJWCU47793W&psc=1&ref_=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl

although that may get expensive......

[TBL]

This is absolutely amazing! How many parts do you think it took?

[kclego]

This is an amazing display stand, thanks a bunch for sharing your build. My daughter and I are recreating it as we speak for our ever growing CMF collection. Would you be able to post a picture of the back of one of the modules? We are going through tons and tons of bricks building supports for all the tiers and bet there is a more efficient way of doing so.

Thanks

Ken

[soccerkid6]

That is an extremely impressive and well thought out CMF display stand Great work going the extra mile and including some dynamic posing for figs

[GhostDog]

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Edited February 1 by GhostDog

[leveldestroyer31]

Amazing display. It really shows off the minifigures really well.