I'm not talking about stands for single figures, rather a display setup.
I have a buddy that works in a business where they make molds with plastic. It's not inconceivable that he could potentially make something that could be quite nice and start selling these things, much like Oscar and his cases (he could make Oscar-ish cases too, though I'd suggest to him that niche is filled).
If you were asked to make a stand, what would you be looking for? And by stand, I mean a riser or series of risers to display your figures on as many of us do in our collections.
For me, I'd probably opt for something 12" wide overall. I'm not sure the width would matter all that much, as you'd have to work your overall space to make them fit, but 12" seems a reasonable measurement. The 12" width would accomodate about 5-8 figures along the width. It could be 8" or 10" as well.
In terms of depth, I'd probably suggest 8" here. That way each section of the stepwise rise would be able to be just a touch under 2" which is probably a reasonable display space for a conventional 3.75" figure. I think if you were just looking for vintage figure displays, you could tighten that up because of the neutral stance of the figures, but far too many modern figures have some splayed-leg, action/attack type of stance that would require most of that 2" of horizontal space from front to back.
I'd suggest 3 steps overall, or maybe 4. Four would fit the 2" step width easily enough of course, so perhaps that would be best. The front could just be the width of the plastic of course, but how much height would be ideal for each subsequent step? Two inches would be ok because you'd get to view 'half' of each 3.75" figure on display. The problem would be that the last figures heads would top out at around 10" in height (3.75" for figure + 2" for step #2 + 2" for step #3 + 2" for step #4 + a little for the first step). Is that too tall? If so, would you be satisfied with a 1" rise for each step? So long as you had your astromechs/Ewoks in the front row, you'd probably see everything fine.
The construction would be plastic of some sort (Lexan, etc.) but what color would you prefer? For myself, I'd be leaning to clear, so that the figure stands I have would match in nicely. But would you accept/use white or black? Or another color?
So if you had a stand that was 12" wide and had four levels, you could display about 32 figures in a 12" wide by 8" deep space that would require 10" of head room. Any appeal to any of you?
I'll use a picture of Scott's collection to show you what I mean with respect to the steps:
I guess I'm asking because I've never been able to find anything locally (this is Canada, eh) that's been satisfactory. I figure if I can convince this guy he'd be able to sell some then I could find them locally. I also think that if I find out what collectors would want, maybe I can make this into a sideline for his business to help justify his mold costs. So what would you want?
