How do you store your figs?

[Troy T. Moore]

After the big seige this afternoon, which concludes the story I was doing with my kids, I am planning a new MOC (Large Castle). Was just curious how you all store your figs during such a process? Do you place them gently in a box? Do you take all their weapons/shields out of their hands (fear of hands stretching)? Do you leave them in ranks on plates on a shelf somewhere? I have right around 300 to deal with.

[Dragon Master]

Troy,

I attach them to a baseplate as is (weapons, helmet, horses). And put them on a basepalte. The baseplates go on a shelf. For loose minifigs, accesories, I keep them in a LEGO container separated from the rest of my collection.

Hope that helps,

DM

[Bricksidge]

I keep my minifigs in here:



(Picture=Link)

I don't have very many full minifig characters at the moment, but when I do, I usually put them on/in a MOC or display them about the room.

[J1A3L5]

I have all my accessories separated out. But as for the figs themselves, I have all the torsos and legs in one area. All the heads I have in a different places stacked up in lines of 10 to make them easier to find. (Of course these get messed up pretty quick! ) Torsos are pretty hard to find sometimes this way though...

As for accessories, I have them very finely sorted down. I have quite a few of them as I love them and they always tempt me on bricklink. Here's a few examples:


'Faceless' headgear. (I call them faceless as they don't have something to cover the face or anything, therefor not having a face on the hat)]
Tools and stuff like that.
Helmets and their visors. I sorted these down quite a bit - I have all the unprinted ones and printed ones separated. And then all the colours and styles of visors out.

[Red Bean]

I pretty much use the same system as J1A3L5, except I keep another box of what I called 'figs for modification', which contains torsos and heads that I've 'blanked out' with brasso, on which I can modify as I like. The lucky ones get turned into Aragorn or Gandalf or somebody cool like that, the less fortunate get turned into orcs... what can I say? I suppose life just isn't fair after all.

R. B.

[Sir Terrance]

I have around 420 minis and I keep them in a big bin with all of there accessories. Is the hand streching something to really worry about? Could a hand just break (gulp) from having an accessory (spelling?) in there too long??

[LEGOFREAK]

um - in corn dog boxes that are being wrapped so they dont look like corn dog boxes anymore. I have ten boxes, each type has its own box, plus two for accesories.I have a couple for castle, and castle accesories as they are used the most frequently. I lump islander and pirates in together. Town. Star wars/space. that sort of thing.

freak

[TwoTonic Knight]

Some go in bins - my 600 pirate figures are all in those currently. The soldiers (red, blue, black, armada) have everything attached, the pirates just their various hats.

Some Castle figs are on base plates with all accoutrements attached. Some are on 8x8 stud movement stand for gaming - more will move onto these as I acquire more baseplates and slice them up. Those on movement stands are placed into large plastic storage containers with drawers.

The rest are currently sprawled about the floor higgledy-piggledy in a drunken riot in various states of experimentation, conversion, and cyberpunkish swapping of body parts.

[J1A3L5]

Well I forgot to mention a couple things I guess, some of my figs are on baseplates.




And then most of my other SW figs are in a separate box made up more or less.

[Troy T. Moore]

I guess I should really mention how I have done things to date. Once a minifig is a certain character, he/she usually stays that character (especially with torsos that have particular factions printed on them) Figs yet to be castlelized remain in a drawer. Spare equipment is sorted and in ziploc bags in a drawer (although I like the looks of those sectioned trays with lids) Figs when not in use go in a drawer. I will see if I can get some of those corn dog boxes or something similar because I like the idea of having the various factions and similarly armed soildiers separated out.

[Dan_BL]

I guess I should really mention how I have done things to date. Once a minifig is a certain character, he/she usually stays that character (especially with torsos that have particular factions printed on them) Figs yet to be castlelized remain in a drawer. Spare equipment is sorted and in ziploc bags in a drawer (although I like the looks of those sectioned trays with lids) Figs when not in use go in a drawer. I will see if I can get some of those corn dog boxes or something similar because I like the idea of having the various factions and similarly armed soildiers separated out.

I like that *castlelized* term! Thats exactly what I do! Most of the minifigs you see in my pictures remain the same until I "kill them" and even at that point I usually just put them aside and use them later. I second that sorted hat and weapons idea.

[porschecm2]

For broken down figs, I keep the pieces sorted in fishing tackle type containers, similar to Jail's. I sort torsos into 3 sections, of dissimilar colours. Black and white go together, and red and blue, for example. Hats/helmets are all in one section, hair pieces in another. Heads are stuck together in long spindles, somewhat ordered. I try to keep mulitples together, such as my dozens of Johnny Thunder heads...In another container, I keep weapons and accessories, sorted by type. Pistols in one, rifles/muskets in another, swords/cutlasses/scimitars in another. Pikes, spears, halberds, lances, etc, in another. Visors in another. Plumes, horns, headdress thingies in another. Pots, pans, suitcases, and all that stuff in another. Screwdriver, hammers, etc, in another. Shovels and picks in another.

For figs I keep together, I have some stuck to baseplates, some just standing, and if I'm in a big hurry, piled on a shelf.

Cm2

[wlister]

I have a less orderly, but pretty useful method of storage. All my soldiers are organized by faction and unit and sorted into baggies. Usually 25 - 50 figs in a baggie depending on the faction. All those baggies are then stored a a large stereo box. It is quite full and holds about 1650 figs right now. Once I have some spare money I will buy a drawer system to store them, I have to be careful with halberds and the new style of sword as they like to bend when stored in a baggie.

I have a 4-drawer storage unit for my figs waiting to be "castleized". 95% of my figs are actual castle figs, but I like to modify my armies in some way, new heads, weapons, legs, arms capes etc... standard figs are a rarity in my collection. Aside from the KKI knight with breastplate, almost all my figs have had some type of modification. I have one drawer for helmets and armor, one for weapons and the other two are for body parts. Town torsos etc... are usually bundled in a lot and sold on ebay. Until Classic-Castle anyway, now I store them and wonder when I will be able to buy a new printer.

Its a decent system, but the sectioned trays sound better to me, too bad I'd need at least 15 to make them useful. Henry is visiting right now, so I will take his picture with the storage container and the stereo box. Right now he is helping with the reconstruction of the Red Stone Inn and pictures should be up late tomorrow.

Will

[Bruce N H]

My sorting is in two bins, with smaller size zip-lock baggies inside gallon-sized ziplock baggies:

Bin 1 (Lord of the Rings/Castle):
Gallon size zip-lock 1 (LotR characters):
small zip-lock: Main characters for my LotR story
small zip-lock: Other characters
small zip-lock: accessories specific to LotR story (basically the weapons for each fig)
Gallon size zip-lock 2 (factions):
each faction in a separate baggie
"random castle characters" in another baggie
Gallon size zip-lock 3 (weapons/accessories):
small zip-lock: swords, all sizes
small zip-lock: bows, crossbows, quivers
small zip-lock: axes (battle axes, halberds, hatchets)
small zip-lock: spears
small zip-lock: food-related accessories (minifig food, plates, bottles etc)
small zip-lock: flame elements and torches (space guns and tree elements)
small zip-lock: books
small zip-lock: medieval headgear that isn't already on characters
small zip-lock: other medieval tools

Bin 2 (other themes):
Gallon size ziplock 1: Star wars figs (with two smaller ziplocks included, one for battle droid elements and another for SW-specific accessories such as lightsabers and Little Armory guns)
Gallon size ziplock 2: Western figs (with a smaller ziplock included with their guns)
Gallon size ziplock 3: Other themes
small zip-lock: Harry Potter figs
small zip-lock: pirate figs
small zip-lock: town figs
small zip-lock: Studios figs
Gallon size ziplock 4: body parts
small zip-lock: loose heads
small zip-lock: loose torsos
small zip-lock: loose legs
small zip-lock: loose hair
small zip-lock: other headgear
small zip-lock: footgear (skis, snowshoes, swim fins)
small zip-lock: town accessories
small zip-lock: space accessories

Anyway, that way it's pretty easy to get to the fig I want pretty quickly. Once a fig from a theme is disassembled, it generally finds its way to the "body parts" bag, unless the torso is very theme specific (e.g. Spiderman or Stormtrooper).

Bruce

[Dan_BL]

I don't really understand how you guys can stand storing your lego in baggies. I find it very nuisome having to use both hands to access my lego parts while building an MOC.