Minifig Storage

[Jareth]

Do you "piece out" your minifigs?

I do, but I think I'm in the minority, I think most people keep the minifigs in their original, lego instructed form.

[Brickdoctor]

As a matter of fact, I do. (in some themes) I part out all minifigs from themes other than Classic Themes, Castle, Pirates, Collectible Minifigs, and Star Wars into containers marked 'Heads', 'Hair', 'Headgear', 'Torsos', 'Arms', 'Hands', 'Hips', 'Legs', and 'Printed Legs and Arms'. Then out of all my parted-out heads, I have one of each kind on a baseplate for easy access. Castle, Classic, and Pirates minifigs have their own drawers, and Star Wars gets a case since I have far and away the most of those.

[Jargo]

I bag them up by profession. complete. then civillians go in a big bag and the bits and bobs left over line the bottom of the drawer the bags go in. like a big jumble or organised chaos.

[JCC1004]

I have a whole bin that I use for spare parts that can't be used to make an official TLG figure. I did make some customs that I have scattered throughout my LEGO room.

The rest of my figures are arranged on three 48X48 gray baseplates. I have columns that start that the front of the baseplate and go back. The figures start two studs back from the front and start one stud to the right on the sides. On the back they are on the last row but how I have them stored I need the two blank rows in the front to be able to slide it of the shelf so my fingers don't knock into them while I try to slide it out. Then the figures have two studs between them on both sides. That way backpacks and odd headgears don't bump into each other. Though on my Star Wars plate some of the Sandcrawler droids and astromech droids are not formatted the same way. I do have a Scout Trooper that is behind the Sandtrooper with the backpack from the Landspeeder and the tip of the Scout's helmet is wedged in between the two lightsaber hilts.

I have the figures arranged by theme, character, appearance, etc. My SW plate is arranged my OT, EU, and PT and CW are merged. I know it is not chronologically like my figures are arranged due to their different outfits. I just has to have OT first because it is my favourite.

On my Star Wars plate I only have a maximum of two of each figure on there because otherwise they'd overflow the plate. I have them stored on three shelves below one another so I figured instead of having them broken into two plates it'd be better to have at least two of every SW figure I own on one plate so I can just transport at least one of each figure easily. The OT overflow is on the end of my Licensed plate and the PT and CW overflow is on my Non-Licensed plate. I did have to transfer all my Rebel Soldiers onto a tan 32X16 Plate because they wouldn't fit with the rest of my OT overflow.

Finally my Collectible Minifigures are on colour corresponding 16X16 plates so they match the bag, box, and leaflet colour. I have the 16 3X4 stands centered on the 16x16 plates. There are only two rows left on both sides of the plate that are vacant. I like that because it does show off the colour the identifies the series.

Dust is sometimes and issue but it's only ever very light dust. I just like having them all out and organized instead of in little baggies.

Wow, I got carried away with my post.

[brickmack]

I keep my collectible minifigs together, on the "stands" included with them, with all their accessories and stuff (unless I use them in a MOC, which I plan to do eventually). Most of the rest I take apart to use in MOCs after I take the set apart they come in (usually about a month to a year after I get the set depending on if I need the parts from it or not, and depending on if I'm running out of space). I also have some that I keep together all the time, like my classic space one (don't want to risk breaking it, I already have newer ones of all the parts in it except the torso anyway). I also have a (very small) army of redcoats that I keep assembled, usually manning my incomplete HMS Victorious MOC or defeating american colonists.

[dr_spock]

I tend to keep my minifigs whole as Lego designed them. There are some I pieced together and some I parted out. The ones that aren't on display, I tossed them into containers. I keep the loose minifig accessories and spare heads in a tackle box.

[fred67]

I almost always keep specific characters together (any licensed theme characters and most of the others), but sometimes I mix and match to get something different; I also have several dozen heads and extra hair and so forth so that I can mix things up, like my line of Hula dancers each has a different face, for example, so they can be in the same MOC and not look like triplets.

I also have a lot of parts separately and essentially have my own "build a minifig" box; when I do take parts from a "whole" character, I often toss the rest of the bits in there.

When I buy in BL, I generally browse the minifigures and parts to bulk up smaller orders and have ended up with quite a bit over time.

[jonwil]

I separate out all my minifigs.

I have a box for heads with heads sorted by type e.g. molded heads in one compartment, unprinted heads in one compartment, flesh heads in another, other printed heads in another and then the yellow printed heads sorted by type, one for heads with glasses, one for heads with sunglasses, one for heads with beards and so on.

For legs I have them sorted into plain, mixed (i.e. different colors for legs and hips), printed and special (i.e. stubby legs, peg legs, dress slopes etc)

For torsos I keep them sorted by type e.g. space in one compartment, plain in another compartment, civilian town in another compartment, town uniforms (e.g. cops, fireman, chefs, construction workers, pilots etc) in another compartment and so on.

Headgear is sorted into:

Hair

Helmets (basically anything that fits the standard TLG helmet and visor connections)

Town hats (baseball caps, knit caps, cop hats, construction helmets, fire helmets, chef hats, bike helmets, arctic hooks etc)

Castle/pirate hats/helmets (including wizard hats, jesters hats, greek helmets etc)

Adventures/western hats (cowboy hats, fedoras, top hats, pith helmets, turbans, aviator caps/goggles, sombreros etc)

Misc (classic space helmets, star wars helmets, Atlantis head covers, batman masks etc)

Edited March 22, 2011 by jonwil

[LEGO Guy Bri]

I take the heads that have additional features than the plain smile to use in my city. As for the torso/legs, mostly late 80's early 90's, that are all repeats designs get the plain smile faces and go in a multi-drawer sorting box. Also, all heads pre-92' with solid stud on top are connected and in their own drawer... I weird about separating them from the "modern" head. Not sure what I want to do with them, keep them incase I resell my sets to keep it original or sell them in sets of say 10 each?

[MinifigFreak2010]

Mine stay intact. They are currently between 2 large drawers on my 39 drawer organizer. The one like in this image but mine is black: http://www.amazon.com/Stack-DS-39-Drawer-Storage-Cabinet/dp/B000HJBA1W and they are also in my 10 drawer cart in a few different drawers. This one: http://www.amazon.com/Seville-Classics-Drawer-Rolling-Cart/dp/B00394HMS2/ref=sr_1_cc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1300808626&sr=1-1-catcorr

However, I will most likely need to either A) transfer them to the 18 drawer organizer to be able to have nearby drawers free or B) Move the pieces in the drawer near them to a different drawer and expand my storage there. This image is nearly the same one I have but mine is red: http://www.amazon.com/DSMG-18-Plastic-Storage-Organizer-Metallic/dp/B004EHY9XO/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1300809780&sr=8-2

However, if I find stray hats in the container and can't find who it goes to, it'll wind up in one drawer of the 39 drawer organizer(One of the small drawers) but I also have a few stray hats/hair in a bead box(it's a small box that holds beads). It's kind of like the one in the follow image, but not as long and about a couple inches less in width: http://www.amazon.com/Beadalon-Bead-Box-7-Inchx11-Inch-Bin/dp/B00480OUAO/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1300809276&sr=8-9

I also have 4 or 5 solid color minifig heads in the same container. I doubt that i'll use them for minifigures any time soon, but it could make for a nifty addition to whenever I get a chance to build with lego again.

[Big Cam]

My minifigs get put together once and rarely get taken apart.

I originally thought this was going to be a thread about how to store minifigs, particularly the series ones where you likely have many duplicates, I use little minifig sized ziploc bags you can get off of amazon, 500 for like $4.

[CptMugwash]

I try and make up as many minifigs as possible with all my parts, but no mismatch colours so no white hand yellow hand, black right arm red left arm etc

[starwarsfanatic]

I take my minifigs apart and put them in boxes with no particular method of sorting, but whenever I want to make a film, I put all the heads on a baseplate or some other way I can see them so as to determine a)what colour to use and b)which heads make the characters most believable.

[Mr. TopHat]

I started off taking my minifigs apart and sorting them by; heads, legs, torso, headgear etc. Then a year ago I had the urge to build them all back together as they originally came from TLG (with accessories) using all my set instructions. I placed each individual figure into a small zip-lock bag, which all go in one big box. At the moment I have most of them in their original form and some sorted into their parts so I can customize whenever I need to. As for the collectable minifigures, I keep them on their stands, those I will not mix (at least for now). Currently I am considering if I should take them apart again, as I can’t seem to make up my mind.

-TopHat

[westy 70]

Mine stand on the book case which the cats find fun as they end up all over the house which is a pain hen the hoover is out