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Oct 27, 2023

Characterful wall display shelves for fantasy and sci

Years ago, I saw a video where the father of "dungeon crafting," DM Scotty,

Years ago, I saw a video where the father of "dungeon crafting," DM Scotty, showed off a cool, characterful wall display he had built for his D&D miniatures. I've always thought it a crime to spend countless hours painting miniatures only to stow them away in cases where no one ever gets to see them. I've considered getting glass cabinets to display my hundreds of models, but I've never found one I'm 100% happy with. Scotty said he might do a full video on how he'd made his case, but (to my knowledge) he never did.

Enter James Floyd Kelly, aka The Tabletop Engineer. Using his 3D design skills and laser cutter, Jim has designed a line of fantasy and sci-fi display shelves. The shelves are available in various sizes and come with all sorts of little accessories that let you decorate your display to suit your taste and miniature collection.

I first got the 18" x 11" Castle Ruins display ($57.25). Laser-cut from 1/4" maple plywood, the kit was easy and fun to assemble using only carpenter's glue. It's just enough assembly that you feel like you accomplished something without it really being much work, maybe an hour. I mounted it in my work studio and quickly filled it with some of my Frostgrave and Blood Bowl minis.

Thrilled with how the fantasy shelves turned out, I immediately ordered the Mega Sci-Fi Display ($92). I have a lot of sci-fi (and Gaslands) models to display. I haven't put this second kit together yet, but I'm looking forward to being able to finally display many of my Warhammer 40K and other sci-fi minis.

Jim even has a miniature miniature display that holds 4 minis (and costs only $16.50). This would make a really sweet gift for a gamer where you painted 4 minis and presented them inside of the mini display.

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