Statues are a great way to share your love for the people who inspire you or showcase your favorite animals or creatures. 3D printed statues do just this and also show off your 3D printer’s abilities!
There are many 3D printed statue designs online, but, like any type of 3D model, they’re spread far and wide across the internet. 3D model repositories are sites that contain tons of digital models that can be downloaded, for free or at a cost. They’re a great way to find 3D models, and you’re likely to find one in a file format that’s compatible with slicer programs (e.g. Cura).
In this article, we’ll go over the best websites for finding 3D statue models in the STL format. For each site, we’ll discuss the main features, the number of models, and how to find the free designs.
If you see something you like but don’t have the time to print it yourself, try a printing service through Craftcloud! In addition to access to materials and finishes that would make even Michelangelo envious, your statue models will look great, thanks to the expertise of professional 3D printing partners around the world.
Considerations
Before we dive into our selected sites, let’s go over how we ultimately chose which sites should be included.
Our first consideration was the number of statue designs available: We tried to include only sites that had a decent amount of models. We also made sure that many of each site’s statue models were available in the STL format or formats that can easily be converted to STL because this widely used format is compatible with most 3D slicer programs.
Another consideration we had was the price of models. We tried to find a balance between sites that contained a lot of free models and sites that contained premium designs that are available for purchase. In terms of premium models, we included sites with an affordable price range.
Lastly, we considered the search features on each site. Search features – such as filters, a search bar, and categories – can help you find the specific type of model you’re looking for. We privileged sites that contain a lot of search features to help you find your desired statue designs faster and easier.
So now that you know what you’re in for, let’s get into the options!
Thingiverse
First up, Thingiverse is the most popular repository of 3D models, so it makes sense that it’s our first choice for finding statue designs. With just a simple search of the word “statue” on Thingiverse, you’ll find over 3,800 relevant designs, all freely available, including famous examples like the Statue of Liberty. As Thingiverse is developed and operated by MakerBot, a popular manufacturer of 3D printers, almost all of the designs on the site are 3D printable and readily available in the STL format.
Although Thingiverse has had some issues when it comes to glitches and losing data, the site is overall pretty well-built with a simple interface and a few search features. Thingiverse has a basic search bar as well as filters for popularity and type of asset to narrow down your search results. It also has categories to organize the many 3D models on the site, and posted models are also usually tagged to help you sort through the huge numbers of results.
- Number of statue designs: ~3,800
- Registration: Not required
- Price: Free
Printables
While MakerBot has Thingiverse, Prusa Research, another manufacturer of 3D printers, has its own 3D model repository known as Printables (formerly PrusaPrinters). While younger than Thingiverse, Printables has quickly brought in many 3D models. The site contains around 2,000 statue designs, all free and almost all available in the STL format.
The site has a great interface that’s pretty modern and runs smoothly. Finding specific statue models on Printables also shouldn’t be too difficult, as the site has a good range of search features, including a search bar and filters for popularity, publishing date, and more. The repository also has categories for popular types of 3D models, and there’s even a category titled “Action Figures & Statues”, which should contain many of the designs you might be looking for.
- Number of statue designs: ~2,000
- Registration: Not required
- Price: Free
TurboSquid
TurboSquid is a repository for a variety of digital assets, including textures, 2D designs, and 3D models. A simple search shows that TurboSquid has over 11,000 statue designs, with over 3,000 available in the STL format.
Most of the designs on TurboSquid, especially the more well-designed statue models, have to be purchased, but there are still many free options too. You can find the freebies by activating the “Free” filter from the drop-down price search menu.
It’s important to note that many of the designs on this site weren’t meant for 3D printing, so not all of them will be easy to make. However, many of the non-STL file formats found on the site can be converted to STL to make them more easily 3D printable, even if they require some repair.
TurboSquid has some of the best search tools out of all of the websites on this list: a search bar, categories such as “Art” and “Sculptures”, as well as a variety of filters. One of the best search features on the site is the polygon count filter, which allows you to filter by the number of polygons a model contains, with a lower value typically providing less complex designs. There are also price filters.
- Number of statue designs: ~3,100
- Registration: Account required
- Price: $40-300
MyMiniFactory
MyMiniFactory is another popular repository of primarily 3D printable designs, including both premium and free models. The site contains over 4,000 statue designs, mostly in the STL format, with options such as statues of abstract art, angels, and historical figures. You can find the free designs on this site by using the “Free Objects” filter under the “Price” section.
The site has a decent user interface that’s not too cluttered, and there are a lot of optional filters that you can use to refine your search for a statue model. Further, there are filters for popularity and publishing date, but the site also filters for more complicated characteristics, such as the model complexity and licensing. MyMiniFactory also has categories and sub-categories to find models in a more structured and organized manner.
- Number of statue designs: ~4,000
- Registration: Not required
- Price: $0-5
Sketchfab
Sketchfab is primarily a 3D model viewer website, but the site is also home to a wide selection of downloadable 3D models including thousands of statue designs. On SketchFab, you can find statues of animals, ancient creatures, and leaders, as well as certain pop culture figures, such as anime characters.
The site has some pretty advanced search tools that you can use alongside their search bar to find your desired statue model. The first filter you should activate is the “Downloadable” filter to ensure that you can download the models because some options are simply uploads of unavailable 3D models.
You can also use the other filters to locate models based on the category they’re in, their publishing date, license, and popularity. Sadly, Sketchfab doesn’t have a filter for only free models.
Like many of the other sites on this list, Sketchfab has both free and premium 3D models, with some designs available in the STL format and many in other formats like BLEND and USDZ. You can find the free models in the “Models” section with the “Downloadable” filter activated. The sponsored models at the top of the search results and in the “Store” section are the premium designs.
- Number of statue designs: 5,000+
- Registration: Account required
- Price: $0-25
Free3D
Free3D, as you probably assumed, is a repository for free 3D models, but, ironically, there are also many premium 3D models on the site that are for sale. There are a few hundred free statue designs on Free3D, located in the “Free 3D Models” section, but most of the statue models are in the “Premium 3D Models” section.
The site’s user interface is pretty basic. Like every other site on this list, Free3D has a basic search bar, and there are some categories such as “Architecture” and “Characters” that you can use to find relevant designs. Free3D also has some useful filters that you can activate, such as “Lowpoly” and “3D Printable”.
- Approximate number of statue designs: ~7,300
- Registration required? No
- Price: ~$0-20
Cults
Cults is yet another repository dedicated to 3D printable models, and it contains a fair amount of statues – an estimated 8,000 designs, most available in the STL format. The statue models on Cults range from busts of superheroes to full-body statues of historical figures.
Like MyMiniFactory and other sites on this list, Cults has both free and premium models. However, most of the popular statue designs are free, and you can search exclusively for free models by using the “Free” filter.
The website has been known to have some bugs, and the images for designs often load slowly, but Cults’ interface is pretty good overall and has minimal clutter. You can use the available filters for price, publishing date, and popularity (views, likes, downloads) to find the best 3D model for your needs. You can also use the categories on Cults to find models that fit a certain theme or style, such as “Architecture” or “Art”.
- Number of statue designs: ~8,000
- Registration: Account required
- Price: $0-5
CGTrader
CGTrader is an online marketplace and repository for mainly animation-focused 3D models, including those that are textured (PBR 3D models) as well as regular designs. A simple search for “statue” on CGTrader brings up almost 28,000 designs, including both premium models and free options. To find the free ones, you can use the “Free” filter by the search bar.
Most of the designs on CGTrader are available in a few different file formats, and there are close to 19,000 statue STL files. However, as most of the designs are meant for animation and rendering rather than 3D printing, the designs are also often available in the FBX or OBJ formats.
The search tools on CGTrader are plentiful, with a basic search bar strengthened by filters including polygon count, licenses, 3D printable, PBR textured, and available formats. The site’s user interface is also pretty nice, though the filters at the top may seem a little cluttered.
- Number of statue designs: ~19,000 (STL), ~28,000 (all formats)
- Registration: Account required
- Price: $0-25
RenderHub
RenderHub is a repository of 3D models and textures, offering both free and premium digital assets. The site has approximately 1,500 statue designs, including art sculptures like Michelangelo’s statue of David. Many of the models are meant for animation, not 3D printing, so the most common available file formats are FBX and OBJ, but some designs come in an STL format.
It’s important to note that most of the statue models on this site are for sale and are usually priced in the range of $5 to $30 per design. To find the free models, you can click the “Free 3D” category or use the “Price Low” filter.
The RenderHub interface looks a little outdated, but it has a polygon count filter, as well as filters for popularity, publishing date, and price, which are all pretty useful. There are also a fair number of categories on RenderHub for the type of digital assets, like 3D scans or 3D printable models, and the type of model, such as “People” and “Animals”.
- Number of statue designs: ~1,500
- Registration: Account required
- Price: $0-30
3DExport
Lastly, 3DExport is a repository containing over 360,000 3D models, and they also have tons of textures (e.g. HDRI images), 3D renders, scripts, eBooks, magazines, and more. A search for a “statue” on the site yields almost 5,000 models alone.
It’s worth mentioning that the results include both free and premium models, but most are the latter, costing anywhere from a few bucks to over a hundred dollars. You can find the free designs by activating the “Free products only” filter.
The site has a decent interface, and 3DExport provides a lot of information for each posted design, including the number of polygons and vertices as well as whether the model is textured and animated. As for the search features, 3DExport has a search bar tool and divides models into categories, such as “Sculpture” and “Figurine”. There are also tons of useful filters for popularity, price, publishing date, rating, available formats, “Print ready”, animated, textured, 3D scanned, and more.
- Number of statue designs: ~5,000
- Registration: Account required
- Price: $0-500
License: The text of "3D Printed Statues: The Best Sites for STL Files" by All3DP is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.