Display Cases for Miniatures: Measure the Figure, Not the Scale

Most guides to display cabinets start with a table that turns a scale ratio into a shelf height. Buy a 1/8 figure, the table says, and leave 25 cm of clear space. It is a tidy rule and it does not survive contact with an actual catalogue.

We measured ours. Across the kits on this site that state a height, a 1/8 figure came in at 18.4 cm and a 1/9 figure at 18.8 cm, so the supposedly larger scale was the shorter model. A 1/12 kit reached 29.4 cm, taller than four of the five 1/10 kits we checked. The ranges inside a single scale ratio overlap so heavily that the ratio tells you almost nothing about the shelf you need.

So this guide is built the other way round. Measure the figure, or read its stated height off the product page, and size the cabinet from that number. Everything else here, materials, UV, dust, doors, is downstream of getting the space right, because a cabinet that protects a figure it cannot fit is no use to anyone.

Why the scale on the listing will not size your shelf

A scale ratio describes the relationship between the model and the thing it depicts. It says a 1/8 figure is one eighth the height of the character. What it does not say is how tall that character is, whether they are standing, crouching or mid leap, how thick the base is, or whether there is a raised sword or a spread wing above the head.

A crouching character at 1/8 and a leaping one at 1/9 can differ by 15 cm in the direction the ratio says is impossible. Add a rocky base and a weapon held overhead and the gap widens again.

Here is what that looks like in real numbers, taken from kits on this site that state a height:

Scale	Shortest kit we measured	Tallest kit we measured
1/12	19.0 cm	29.4 cm
1/10	19.7 cm	31.3 cm
1/9	18.8 cm	34.0 cm
1/8	18.4 cm	22.0 cm
1/6	29.9 cm	44.6 cm

Every one of those ranges overlaps at least one other. Four of the five overlap three others. If you had sized a shelf for a 1/9 figure using a rule of thumb, you would have needed anywhere from 24 cm to 39 cm of clear height once clearance is added, and the rule would have picked one number.

The practical consequence is simple. Never buy a cabinet against a scale ratio. Buy it against a measurement, either one you took yourself or one the seller published. Scale versus proportion covers why two kits at the same ratio can look nothing alike, which is the same effect seen from a different angle.

Key takeaways

• Scale ratios overlap heavily in real height and cannot size a shelf.
• Across our catalogue a 1/8 kit measured shorter than a 1/9 kit.
• Size the cabinet from a stated or measured height, never from the ratio.

The measurement that actually matters, and how to take it

Three numbers decide whether a figure fits: its total height including the base, its widest footprint, and the clear space you leave around it. Take them in that order.

Height. Measure from the bottom of the display base to the highest point on the model, which is often not the head. A raised blade, a spread wing, an antenna of hair or a plume of effect parts will all beat the skull. If you are working from a product page rather than a model in hand, use the stated height, since that figure is normally measured on the assembled kit including its base.

Footprint. Measure the widest span at the base, front to back and side to side. On a single standing figure this is usually the base itself. On a multi part kit or a diorama it can be much wider than anything above it, and depth is what runs out first in a shallow cabinet.

Clearance. Add 5 cm to the height. Roughly 3 cm of that is headroom so the figure does not look wedged under the shelf above, and 2 cm is for the fact that you have to lift the model out at an angle to get it past the shelf lip, and a tight fit is how a raised arm gets snapped. Add 3 cm to the footprint depth for the same reason.

So a kit stated at 25.5 cm wants a shelf with about 30.5 cm of clear height, and that is clear height between shelves, not the cabinet's outside dimension. This is the single most common measurement mistake in cabinet buying, and it is worth being blunt about it: the number in a product listing is almost always the external height of the whole unit, including the frame, the feet and the thickness of every shelf. The usable space per shelf can be a third less.

What a cabinet listing does not tell you

Cabinet listings are written to sell a cabinet, not to answer the question you actually have. Four things are routinely missing, and all four are worth asking about before you pay.

Internal usable height, shelf by shelf. Not total height. If the shelves are adjustable, ask for the range and the increment, because a shelf that adjusts in 5 cm steps cannot be set to 30.5 cm if the steps land on 28 and 33.

Internal usable depth. Again not the external figure. Doors, seals and back panels all eat into it.

The material grade, not just the material. "Acrylic" covers a wide range. Cast acrylic is the better grade for a display case, with more clarity and better resistance to crazing than extruded. Panel thickness matters for large panels because thin sheet bows over a long span, which shows up as a visible wave in the reflection long before it becomes structural.

Whether the UV protection is real. UV filtering comes from the grade of the material, not from how thick it is. A thick panel of standard acrylic filters very little. Ask the seller to state the grade and what proportion of UV it blocks, and treat an answer of "it is thick acrylic so it is fine" as a no.

If a listing will not answer those four questions and the seller will not either, that is the answer. There is no shortage of sellers.

Acrylic, glass, and what the difference is really about

The choice is usually framed as clarity versus cost. It is more useful to frame it as what you are willing to have go wrong.

Acrylic is light, it does not shatter, and it survives shipping. It scratches, and it scratches from exactly the thing you will do most often, which is wiping it. It also has to be the right grade to filter UV, and the cheap grades yellow over years. If you are wall mounting, or moving house occasionally, or buying online and worrying about the courier, acrylic is the sane choice.

Glass resists scratching, stays optically clear indefinitely, and is heavier and more fragile in exactly the moments that matter, which are shipping and installation. On a tabletop cabinet that will not move again, glass is the nicer surface to live with. On a wall mounted unit it adds real load, and that load has to go into something structural rather than into plasterboard.

Framed cabinets, with a wood or metal frame carrying acrylic or glass panels, are what you want once the collection outgrows a box. The frame is doing the structural work, so the panels can be thinner, and the door can carry a proper seal. They are heavier, harder to reposition, and wall mounted versions generally want fixing into studs rather than into board alone.

None of these is a bad answer. The bad answer is a cabinet whose material grade nobody will name.

UV, heat and humidity, and which one you should actually worry about

Painted resin has three enemies and they are not equally urgent.

UV is the one that matters. Cured photopolymer resin discolours under ultraviolet light, and the change is permanent. A pale figure in a sunny window will shift over months, and no amount of cleaning brings it back. A cabinet with UV filtering panels is worth paying for. A cabinet positioned out of direct sun is worth more, because it costs nothing. Do both if you can.

Heat is the one that ruins things suddenly. Resin softens and warps with sustained heat, and a warped part cannot be unwarped. Keep cabinets away from radiators, heating vents and the top of anything that runs warm. If you are fitting lighting, use low heat LEDs and keep them off the figures rather than pressed against them. Sunlight through glass is a heat problem as well as a UV one, which is why a south facing window is worse than either factor alone suggests.

Humidity matters least, for this material. Resin does not corrode and a printed kit has no metal parts to rust. What humidity affects is the paint and varnish on top, and swings are worse than a steady level. A room that stays roughly stable is fine. A garage that goes from cold and damp to warm and dry every day is not.

Our guide to storing resin kits for longevity goes further on the environmental side, including what to do with kits that are not on display.

Dust, doors and cleaning

No cabinet is dust proof. Static and air movement carry fine dust through gaps that look sealed, and the interior of a closed case will still need cleaning, just far less often than an open shelf.

What reduces it is the door. A magnetic closure or a soft seal around the opening makes a real difference against a plain hinged door with a gap along one edge. Mounting a cabinet on the wall rather than on a surface also helps, mostly because the top of a freestanding cabinet is a dust shelf at eye level and the top of a wall unit is not.

When you do clean, take the figures out first. Cleaning around them is how models get knocked over, and the cloth catches on raised parts. Use a microfibre cloth on the panels, because paper towel and household wipes are abrasive enough to haze acrylic, and the haze is cumulative and permanent. A soft brush gets the corners. Let everything dry fully before the figures go back in, so you are not sealing damp into a closed box.

For the figures themselves, a soft dry brush is usually enough. Painted and varnished resin does not want to be washed, and neither does an unpainted kit.

Key takeaways

• A door seal or magnetic closure does more for dust than any other feature.
• Remove figures before cleaning the case, and use microfibre rather than paper.
• Let the interior dry completely before the figures go back in.

We do not sell display cases

Remerlinds makes resin figure kits. We do not make, stock or resell cabinets, vitrines, acrylic boxes or shelving, and we are not going to pretend otherwise in a guide that exists because people search for them.

That also means we are not quoting you prices. We have no way to verify what a cabinet should cost in your country this month, and a made up price range in a buying guide is worse than no price at all, because it anchors you to a number nobody stands behind. What we can give you is the specification to ask for, which is what actually determines the price you are quoted.

What we do know precisely is how tall our kits are, because we publish that on the product pages, and that is the number your cabinet has to accommodate. So the useful thing we can offer here is the other half of the equation.

Kits, and the shelves they need

Every height below is the figure's stated height on its own product page. The shelf column is that height plus the 5 cm of clearance described earlier. All of these ship unpainted.

Kit	Scale	Stated height	Clear shelf height
Maomao, The Apothecary Diaries	Chibi	6.6 cm	11.6 cm
Gastly, Haunter and Gengar	Chibi	12.2 cm	17.2 cm
Edward Elric, Fullmetal Alchemist	1/8	18.4 cm	23.4 cm
Ranma, Ranma 1/2	1/9	18.8 cm	23.8 cm
Sauron, Lord of the Rings	1/10	25.5 cm	30.5 cm
Urbased, Breathe the Wilderness	1/9	34.0 cm	39.0 cm
Jun the Swan, Gatchaman	1/6	44.6 cm	49.6 cm

Look at rows three and four. Edward Elric is listed at 1/8 and Ranma at 1/9, and Ranma is the taller model. That is the whole argument of this guide in two lines of a table.

Jun the Swan is worth calling out separately, because it is the one kit on the site that publishes a base footprint: 27.4 cm by 30.4 cm as displayed. At that size the depth of the cabinet decides whether it fits long before the height does, and a 15 cm deep case is not in the conversation no matter how tall it is. If you are looking at a large kit or a multi figure piece and the page gives you height only, ask us for the base dimensions before you buy the cabinet rather than after.

Every kit is made to order in the Netherlands, printed in resin, and shipped unpainted with the supports removed, washed, fully cured, test fitted and every part bagged. Which preparation tier you choose changes how much work is left before it goes in the cabinet, and finish levels explained covers that in full. Bronze usually ships in 2 to 5 business days, Silver in 4 to 8, and Gold in 6 to 14. The rest of the range is in the full Remerlinds catalogue, and every product page states the height.

Buying the cabinet before the figure

Most people buy the figure first and find a cabinet afterwards. That order is how you end up with a shelf 2 cm too short, a base that overhangs, and a second cabinet that does not match the first.

The better sequence is to decide roughly what you collect, look up the stated heights of two or three kits you actually want, take the tallest of them, add the clearance, and buy for that. A cabinet with adjustable shelves buys you room to be wrong, which is worth more than any other single feature once a collection starts growing.

If you are still deciding what to collect rather than how to house it, choosing a kit for your collection is the better place to start, and how to display your finished resin figures covers the arrangements that do not involve a cabinet at all.

Where to start

Do this before you open a single cabinet listing. Pick the tallest kit you own or intend to buy, find its stated height, add 5 cm, and write the number down. Then measure the space the cabinet has to live in, and write down its width, height and usable depth.

You now have four numbers, and they will disqualify most of what you were about to look at in under a minute. That is the point. Cabinet shopping is slow because the listings are vague, and the fastest way through is to arrive with a specification instead of a preference.

Then ask the seller the four questions from earlier: usable height shelf by shelf, usable depth, material grade, and what the UV filtering actually is. A seller who answers all four is worth buying from. A seller who answers none of them has told you something useful anyway.

Recommended reading

• How to properly store 3D printed resin kits, for the kits that are not on display.
• Scale versus proportion, on why the ratio tells you so little.
• 40mm scale miniatures, which takes the same measurement problem down to the small end of the range.
• Repairing resin figurines, for when something comes out of the cabinet in two pieces.