Looking for good ways to catogorice DnD Miniatures

[Baumi]

I have bought many, many DnD Minatures (the collectible plastic ones) and now I have the proplem that I dont know how I can make them easily searchable.

I use them for RPG's and for the Miniature Tabletop Rules and just use a Shoebox for storage, but finding the right figures take too long.

I tried to split them into the different size, because there are not so many small, large and huge one's but how should I divide the medium ones? The different Factions would work great for the Miniature Rules but would hardly be useable for RPG's.

I tried to divide them to humanoid from monsters but there are to many figures where it's hard to choose either one (Werwolf, Draconian, etc.).

So how would you do it?

Have FUN!
Baumi

 

[the Jester]

I've devoted a tabletop to it and sorted them into very rough, very subjective areas. I also have all the other figures of various sorts that are dnd-usable on the table.

Over here are animals, next to them are dinosaurs, behind them are army men and cowboys & indians.

Over here we have everything that's likely to be usable as a pc. This section is the spellcaster/monk area, here are the small folk (gnomes, halflings and dwarves), this is the females (since there are so few compared to the male figures, at least in my collection- though the new plastic minis have a much better gender balance), etc.

Over here are all the scaly folk and dragons, including yuan ti, lizardfolk, trogs, etc.

Here are the goblins; adjacent to them, the orcs; beside both are the miscellanious monsters, subdivided as best I can (a section for outsiders, a section for 'tentacled stuff,' etc).

Oh, and this here, the big pile in the center? Those are dead, baseless, broken or destroyed minis. Just in case I can harvest 'em for parts or something.

 

[Crothian]

If you have thje money there are some great mini orgainzers out there. Personally, I always liked the fisihng tackle box as they usually don't cost as much but many of the larger minis have a hard time fitting in them.

 

[RogueRonin]

One of my friends has a ton of D&D minis. He got some shoe boxes, and labeled them by set and number ( harbinger 1-20, harbinger 21-40, etc.). he printed out sheets of the sets and numbers for a key. It is a really fast way to catalouge a large number of them, and then find them easily when you need one. Hope that helps.

 

[fafhrd]

My buddy and I break them out by MM type. When a group gets too large, we use qualifiers(under humanoids you get racial categories since there are a ton, for really populous groups like humans we make human cleric/warrior etc). Seems to work pretty well, and yes we use the stackable organizer/tacklebox method.

 

[TwilightWhisper]

I do it according to creature type.

 

[countgray]

I bought these large fishing tackle cases from Walmart. They have four clear plastic boxes in them that you can use to divide up your figures as you see fit. I grouped mine into a box each for Good humans/demihumans, Bad Guy humans/demihumans, Animals, Outsiders, Magical beasties, and subhumans and underdark types with undead lumped in with them. I had so many orcs I just put them in a coffee can labeled "Orcs".

 

[Simplicity]

Medium tackleboxes from The Container Store. 9.99 each.
I have almost all of the miniatures (except huges) from all of the sets
contained within four of these bad boys.

One box for PC races.
One box for humanoid non-PC races.
One box to rule them ALL!!!! oh wait... no, no, One box for animals/aberrations/undead.
And one box for Dragons/Demons.

 

[ForceUser]

I have bought many, many DnD Minatures (the collectible plastic ones) and now I have the proplem that I dont know how I can make them easily searchable.

I use them for RPG's and for the Miniature Tabletop Rules and just use a Shoebox for storage, but finding the right figures take too long.

I tried to split them into the different size, because there are not so many small, large and huge one's but how should I divide the medium ones? The different Factions would work great for the Miniature Rules but would hardly be useable for RPG's.

I tried to divide them to humanoid from monsters but there are to many figures where it's hard to choose either one (Werwolf, Draconian, etc.).

So how would you do it?

Have FUN!
Baumi

I separate mine into one-gallon plastic jugs by creature type: animals/magical beast, aberrations/constructs/plants, monstrous humanoids, dragons, undead, outsiders, humans, elves/dwarves/halflings/gnomes, and giants.

 

[Baumi]

It seems that the Monster-Types are the most used Sorting-Method. Thanks for the tips!