Written by , Assistant Director, Loaded Dice Last reviewed

The statue scale guide: what the numbers mean, and what actually fits

Every statue is sold with a scale — 1/10, 1/6, 1/4, 1/3 — and it's the single most useful number on the listing, provided you know what it means. It's also the number most often skimmed past, which is how people end up with a metre of polystone and nowhere to put it. This guide covers what each scale means in centimetres, what the pieces weigh, and — because most guides on this subject were written for a display cabinet IKEA no longer sells in Britain — what you can actually stand them in as of 2026.

How scale works

Scale is a fraction of life size. A six-foot character stands 183cm, so at 1/10 scale the figure itself is around 18cm, at 1/4 around 46cm, at 1/3 around 61cm. Two things push the real product taller than the maths: the base, which on premium pieces is substantial, and the pose. In practice, listed heights run 3 to 15cm over the theoretical figure — so always work from the listed height, which on our product pages includes the base.

Scale 6ft character becomes Typical listed height* Typical weight Think of it as
1/10 18.3cm 19–29cm 1–3kg A bookshelf object. Several per shelf.
1/6 30.5cm 30–40cm 2–5kg One hand-span tall. Two or three per shelf.
1/4 45.8cm 50–71cm 5–11kg A centrepiece. One per shelf, if the shelf can take it.
1/3 61cm 71–89cm ~20kg Furniture. Needs a surface, not a shelf.
1/2 91.5cm 104–125cm 17–26kg Floor-standing. Plan the room around it.
1/1 bust — 75–90cm tall, up to 92cm wide varies Fails on width before height. Effectively a plinth piece.

*Ranges from current studio listings: Iron Studios Art Scale 19–29cm; Sideshow Premium Format 50–71cm at 5.4–10.9kg; Prime 1 Museum Masterline 1/3 at 79cm and 19.6kg; Sideshow Legendary Scale Darth Vader at 119cm and 17kg; Queen Studios 1/1 Joker bust 87cm tall by 92cm wide.

The Detolf problem

For fifteen years the default answer to "where do I put my collection" was the IKEA Detolf — £50-ish, glass on all four sides, four compartments. Nearly every scale guide and forum thread still assumes you can buy one. You can't. The Detolf was quietly discontinued and no longer appears on IKEA's UK site; the only route now is second-hand or marked-up third-party sellers.

If you already own Detolfs, the working numbers are: roughly 38cm of internal width, 33cm of depth, and about 36cm of height per compartment as factory-configured — enough for anything 1/10, most 1/6 pieces, and nothing above that. Each glass shelf is rated for around 5kg, so a heavy 1/6 piece belongs on the solid base level, not the glass.

What IKEA actually sells in 2026 — and what each can hold

Measured from IKEA UK's current listings, including the number that matters most and gets read least: the maximum load per glass shelf. Polystone is dense — a 1/4 Premium Format is 5 to 11kg, which is more than most glass shelves are rated for.

Cabinet Price Size (W×D×H) Load/shelf 1/10 1/6 1/4
BLÅLIDEN £79 (£87 lit) 35×32×151cm 3kg ✓ light pieces only ✗
RUDSTA tall £99 42×37×155cm 5kg ✓ ✓ ✗ (weight)
RUDSTA wide £129 80×37×120cm 9kg ✓ ✓ lighter pieces, base level
FABRIKÖR £149 57×47×150cm 10kg ✓ ✓ lighter pieces only, one per shelf — check the weight
MILSBO tall £229 73×42×175cm 5kg ✓ ✓ ✗ (weight)
BILLY 80cm £55 80×28×202cm 30kg ✓ ✓ ✗ (28cm depth)
KALLAX cube from £50 ~33×38×33cm per cube 13kg ✓ ✗ (height) ✗

Reading that table honestly:

  • The RUDSTA tall is the Detolf's real successor — near-identical footprint (42×37 against 43×37), £99, three glass shelves. Same limitation too: 5kg per shelf keeps it a 1/10 and 1/6 cabinet.
  • The FABRIKÖR has the highest glass-shelf rating in IKEA's current UK range — 10kg per shelf, twice most of the others — and it locks. Even so, quarter-scale polystone pieces can exceed the load rating of standard glass shelves, this one included. Confirm both the assembled weight and the manufacturer's shelf rating before display; where the net weight is unconfirmed, use a suitably rated solid surface or plinth.
  • The BILLY paradox: 30kg shelves would carry anything, but 28cm of depth means a 1/4 base physically won't sit on it. Superb for 1/10 ranks; irrelevant above that.
  • From 1/3 upward, cabinets stop being the question. A Museum Masterline is ~20kg — about twice what any IKEA glass shelf is rated for. These pieces stand on solid furniture, a plinth, or the floor, and the buying decision is about the room, not the cabinet.

Which scale should you actually collect?

The honest answer is the one that fits the space you have — a collection you can display beats a grail in a box. Some rules of thumb:

  • Collect across many characters? 1/10 — the maths of shelf space is the whole appeal, and lines like Iron Studios' Art Scale are designed to be displayed together.
  • Want presence without furniture decisions? 1/6 is the sweet spot: real detail at arm's length, still two-to-a-shelf.
  • Want the piece to stop people at the door? 1/4 — but confirm the piece's assembled weight against your shelf's rating first, or plan a suitably rated solid surface or plinth, and check the listed depth against your surface.
  • 1/3 and up: treat it like buying furniture, because it is. Measure the space, check the floor route from the front door, and remember multi-box deliveries need two people.

One last measuring trick before you order: cut a piece of cardboard to the listed base dimensions and stand it where the statue will live for a week. It sounds absurd. It has saved more collectors than any spreadsheet.

Our product pages show each piece's height, and its footprint and weight wherever the studio or our distributor has confirmed them — because this is exactly the decision those figures exist to inform. If you're unsure whether a specific piece fits a specific spot, ask us and we'll tell you straight. Browse the full range of open editions, or check current dates on the release tracker.

Sources

The cabinet figures on this page are checked against IKEA UK's live product listings — the two below are the cabinets this guide refers to most. Prices move; the review date in the byline is the last time they were checked.