Flight Stands to Use Vertical Space

[Exatron]

I'm building a new display case as part of a basement remodel. It's largely intended to finally have a good display space for Unicron, so it's pretty big - 4' wide and 2' deep. Unicron's going to dominate the upper half of it. For the lower half, I want to set up a display of my Decepticon army. That's going to include the titans, so that section is going to be 2' high.

With the titans and combiners eating up a lot of the shelf space, I'd really like to have bots like the seekers up in the air, with the ground troops beneath them. That would let me maximize how many figures I can cram in there.

I tried looking for flight stands that could lift them up high enough for this, and specifically was imagining a large base where I could attach multiple arms to arrange around other figures standing on the base. However, all the ones I'm finding only seem to hold a single figure up a little above the base, and ultimately use up more shelf space than just having them stand. They're all about posing, not about maximizing space. The next best option I can come up with is a clear shelf if I can find one high enough, probably then in combination with flight stands so they don't look like they're just standing on air.

Does anyone know of any good options for something like this?

 

[Andrusi]

This is actually something I'm interested in also, but my Google-fu isn't working.

I think the most likely solution for what I want (as in "I've seen all these features individually so I would think this is a product that exists") is an inexpensive stand where the base can link to other stands (which would help with stability for higher-altitude guys) and the arm is user-built from parts that can be daisy-chained to arbitrary lengths.

 

[The Predaking]

I used to use fishing line to have my flying figures in the air. I thought it worked well.

 

[Haywire]

What is the back of the display case going to be? If you aren't planning to have a backdrop or mirror or something, I'm wondering if you might be able to modify pegboard or slatboard fixtures to do what you want? I feel like I've seen some acrylic fixtures at store displays that might do what you want and be repositionable in the future.

I guess the correct term is slat wall, but there are a lot of acrylic shelves available on Amazon that might be able to be cut into narrow fixtures to hold transformers in the air without looking too much like shelves. Probably other retailers as well?

Also, a background image could be applied to slat wall in strips; wouldn't be perfect but might be able to somewhat disguise the slat wall itself.

 

[Exatron]

What is the back of the display case going to be? If you aren't planning to have a backdrop or mirror or something, I'm wondering if you might be able to modify pegboard or slatboard fixtures to do what you want? I feel like I've seen some acrylic fixtures at store displays that might do what you want and be repositionable in the future.

I guess the correct term is slat wall, but there are a lot of acrylic shelves available on Amazon that might be able to be cut into narrow fixtures to hold transformers in the air without looking too much like shelves. Probably other retailers as well?

Also, a background image could be applied to slat wall in strips; wouldn't be perfect but might be able to somewhat disguise the slat wall itself.

The back is pretty simple - just a black expanded PVC foam sheet. Not very exciting, but the storage rack I found on clearance has a nice finished look and is all black, so I decided to just have the back match the rest of the rack.

I like the idea, but I think the problem I'd run into is that one of the biggest goals I have for this is to get all my Titans out of storage. I'm expecting that between Nemesis, Trypticon, Scorponok, and Black Zarak (and maybe Tidal Wave if he'll fit), anything I might put on the back wall would probably be hidden behind them, and probably push them forward, eating up more shelf space. I'll have to take a look once I've finished digging them out of storage.

 

[Xero]

I have a few figures hung from my ceiling with a clear line for beading called stretch magic. Tie it in a loop then support your figure in the flying pose as needed. Works well enough.

 

[Haywire]

If suspending the figures with wire or fishing line doesn't work, I wonder if a Tri-Dimensional Chess frame (from TV's Star Trek) could be modified to provide the varied altitude support you want? Probably have to cut down the platforms to be less obvious, but it seems like the frame itself is really pretty unobtrusive.

I was looking up military model dioramas, but most of the solutions I see involve drilling into the models, and I kind of doubt that is an option here.