Anime is a diverse medium, telling stories that range from giant robots battling it out, pop idols trying to achieve their dreams, people who just have to catch ’em all, and even lonely office workers just trying to get through their day. There’s no shortage of interesting and creative stories being told for any and all generations.
Likewise, an incredibly diverse group of fans is out there producing high-quality models based on these shows. Below, we’ve rounded up a list of some of the best places to look for anime 3D models and what you can expect from each site. We’ll first look at sites in English, then a few in Japanese.
If one of these sites inspires you to get something 3D printed, try Craftcloud. There’s a wide variety of materials and finishes available, so you’ll be able to get your favorite characters printed just as you imagine them.
What We're Looking For
When searching for sites to include on this list, we focused on a few considerations:
- Easy to search: Finding the exact model you’re looking for can be tough. We kept an eye out for anything that makes that process more straightforward, like useful categories and search filters.
- High-quality and authentic: There’s nothing wrong with taking some creative license, but we wanted to make sure models stayed true to their original look.
- Reasonable pricing: Reasonable pricing is good, and free is even better. We’ll be highlighting what you can expect to pay at various sites.
- Easy to print: If your goal is to 3D print a particular anime model, we paid attention to the reliability of the site for 3D printable models.
And now, はじめましょう (Let’s start)!
English Sites
Surprisingly, most fan content of anime models doesn’t come from Japan. We’ll shed a little more light on that later in our Japanese site section, but for now, let’s take a look at the incredible offerings from these English-language sites!
TurboSquid
TurboSquid is a site that delivers industry-ready content and where art students’ test projects go to die. Just kidding! Safe to say, as a famous and long-running site, the models on TurboSquid can get pretty varied.
After checking out models for series like Naruto and Dragon Ball, we found that while there are plenty of models floating around, printability is a big issue here. It’s no surprise, as TurboSquid doesn’t cater to 3D printing beyond providing an STL file filter. Get ready to judge for yourself if a model is worth the attempt to print it.
- Search: There’s a tag system that might be useful depending on your search but little focus on printability.
- Quality and authenticity: You can find a wide variety of models, as there’s everything from professional works to students’ first attempts at 3D modeling.
- Pricing: We saw models ranging from free to $300. TurboSquid serves a lot of markets, so you might end up paying for things you don’t need, like rigging and texturing.
- Printing: It could take some extra work to make models printable, but you might get lucky and find the odd model intended for printing.
CGTrader
CGTrader, as the name suggests, is a paid website showcasing impressive-looking models. While it provides 3D models for a variety of uses, it has a search toggle for 3D printable content specifically.
It also has a very strong selection of models, with Dragon Ball being a particular highlight! You can also find models from Ranma ½, Darling in the Franxx, One Piece, and a very intense Motoko from Ghost in the Shell!
- Search: The “3D Print” filter is very helpful for getting results quickly.
- Quality and authenticity: CGTrader generally gave us the highest quality models out of everything we looked at. But no doubt that’s because all are for a cost.
- Pricing: Expect to pay for everything on CGTrader. While prices can get into the hundreds, you’re more often looking at prices between $5 and $50 for models.
- Printing: Toggle on “3D Print” under attributes when searching, and you’re good to go. You won’t feel like you’re suddenly dealing with a very limited collection. But if you’re feeling brave, you can search for everything and try your luck printing it.
Thingiverse
Home of the truly free and 3D printable, Thingiverse has models from a wide variety of shows and movies. It has a ton of Pokémon models, from the authentic to the geometric. You can find an impressive Tachikoma from Ghost in the Shell or try your hand at a “Gunpla” with various Gundam kits.
Thingiverse also has lots of anime-inspired objects, like this Sailor Moon jewelry. Search for your favorite series and add a little anime flare to your workshop or home!
- Search: It can be a bit hit or miss, but keep an eye out for tags that might help you find a collection of models that you’re interested in.
- Quality and authenticity: There’s quite a variety here. Some models have amazing attention to detail, while others are from amateurs who just want to try their hand at making something they love.
- Pricing: All models are free! Very occasionally you can find someone linking off-site to paid versions of their works.
- Printing: Thingiverse is totally focused on 3D printing, and the community is active in posting makes of popular models. Occasionally, you’ll find a 3D model that’s been uploaded without consideration for printing, but it’s not common.
Cults
Cults is both a free and paid marketplace for various 3D models. With a range of designs, Studio Ghibli seems to be pretty popular, and you can even find whole dioramas based on scenes from Evangelion.
It’s worth keeping an eye on the printing technique that a model requires, as some more complex stuff has been designed for resin printers rather than FDM.
- Search: Cults doesn’t provide any features specific to anime, but its search is pretty solid in directing you to the most relevant results.
- Quality and authenticity: Models are generally of high quality, though searching through you’ll find the odd model that’s a bit more stylistic.
- Pricing: Cults pricing can vary a lot, from free all the way up to $150. Generally, you can expect to pay $20 to $30 for high-quality models.
- Printing: Cults is focused on 3D printing and paid models should be printable right off the bat. Quality designers provide “exploded” views of all the components in a figure, allowing you to see how it all goes together.
CO3D
Focusing exclusively on pop culture busts, dioramas, and figures, CO3D is a marketplace for collectors and hard fans. The site is divided between the model repository and the hire-an-artist section, where you can commission a 3D sculpt from one of the many talented modelers available. It’s also possible to create and support fundraisers for model collections and larger projects.
Hosting both free and paid items, CO3D mostly caters to users with a resin printer and a lot of desire to use it. We really liked this Fall Guys Pikachu and this Monkey D. Garp figure.
- Search: The search feature is the only way to get to a model, as the categories are too broad.
- Quality and authenticity: The quality is overall really high, with a lot of cosplaying items and dioramas available.
- Pricing: It features mostly paid items in the $5 to $25 range, with a few promotional ones available for free.
- Printing: Models are often sold ready to be printed, either pre-supported or at least sectioned and oriented properly.
Sketchfab
Sketchfab serves multiple roles, as a marketplace and download directory but also as a general artist showcase. This means not all models you find on Sketchfab will be downloadable, but we found plenty of great stuff to check out.
While Sketchfab isn’t aimed at 3D printing, sticking “printable” in your search will turn up various models ready to go. For paid models, pricing generally varies between $5 and $30.
When looking around, we found a great Ryuk from Death Note, Kogoro Mouri’s office from Detective Conan, and even a cute pixelated series of Sailor Moon characters.
- Search: It’s what you’d expect, and it gets the results you want. However, there isn’t a “printable” filter or tag.
- Quality and authenticity: The quality bar seems to be set pretty high on Sketchfab. We only saw a handful of submissions that truly looked low-effort or amateur.
- Pricing: Paid models were priced somewhere between $5 and $50, but most of our search results didn’t have a price tag attached.
- Printing: Printability varies depending on the model, but it’s easy to find models specifically for 3D printing.
Gambody
Gambody is the dream of every figurine collector come to life. It only offers models that are designed and perfected for 3D printing. Every pack includes a different version of the same model, optimized specifically for FDM or resin machines. Each file comes with a dedicated printing guide, as well as a detailed description for assembly.
The anime section isn’t enormous but has some terrific designs, like a Charizard vs. Pikachu Diorama and this model of Ryuk from Death Note.
- Search: Assuming that it exists on the website, it can be found easily. There’s also a dedicated anime subsection.
- Quality and authenticity: The attention to detail is remarkable, and all the models are unique pieces of art. However, it does somewhat lack variety.
- Pricing: The pricing varies between $16 and $40 per model. Considering the amount of work that goes into preparing and testing the model for printing, we think the cost is justified.
- Printing: The included instructions detail every setting to use in the slicer, simplifying the process for new users. Huge models are cut to fit most printers.
MyMiniFactory
MyMiniFactory is notable, as it has a specific section for fan art models. A quick glance will leave you feeling that it’s pretty Western-focused, but, on a deeper dive, you can find a lot of anime models.
Among the many options, you can download both terrifying and somewhat cute Attack on Titan figures. They also have a variety of Sword Art Online weapons to scale!
- Search: The fan art category helps you narrow down to what you’re looking for pretty quickly.
- Quality and authenticity: MyMiniFactory doesn’t provide the best selection, and there’s a wide variety when it comes to authenticity. However, there are some true gems to be found!
- Pricing: There’s both free and paid content, but the paid models tend to be for original creations. Most of the time, fan art doesn’t attract a price tag.
- Printing: MyMiniFactory focuses on 3D printing, so everything should be printable without too many hurdles.
Pinshape
Pinshape is a community marketplace where everyone can post their models either for a set price or for free. The user base nowadays isn’t as active as it was a few years back, but the site still hosts many cool and unique models. The interface is really close to MyMiniFactory, with a sidebar for the info, a description under the model, and a section for posted makes. A Pinshape or Google account is needed to download the models.
The choice is mainstream but rather wide. For example, here’s a Tokyo Ghoul figure, a cute Chibi from Spirited Away, and Deku’s mask from My Hero Academia.
- Search: The “Miniatures” and “People + Creatures” categories are full of anime figures.
- Quality and authenticity: Predictably, paid models offer the best quality, with free ones being acceptable most of the time.
- Pricing: Costs are rather affordable, with most models in the $1 to $7 range. Many models are free.
- Printing: Most, if not all models are ready to print. The author usually adds a few indications in the description of the file, and the comments help too.
Thangs
Thangs is the new kid on the block. Born not too long ago, the website acts as a 3D printable file repository (just like Thingiverse), but what makes it interesting is its cross-platform search function. This way, it can find the desired model by scanning through different websites at the same time, though this inevitably leads to some repetition, of course.
In terms of the number of models, being relatively new, Thangs falls behind other entries on this list. But that doesn’t mean that it’s not worth a look. We were able to find this MewTwo in the charging pose and this Hunter License from the popular series Hunter x Hunter.
- Search: Keywords like “anime” return poor results, so the best way to find what you’re looking for is to search for something more specific. There are no dedicated categories or tags. Helpful, but far from complete (so far).
- Quality and authenticity: The quality is generally mediocre, offering mostly user designs. We didn’t spot any professional artists’ work.
- Pricing: Thangs offers its entire catalog for free.
- Printing: Some models are published for the sake of doing so, without any attention to printability.
The Models Resource
The Models Resource, a sister site of the infamous Spriters Resource, provides 3D assets from various video games. As it’s pretty common for anime characters to appear in tie-in games, lots of models can be found here. Digging around, we saw characters from the worlds of Haruhi Suzumiya, Detective Conan, and Love Live. You can also find endless models from popular Japanese video games!
The big caveat is that these were never intended to be printed or even be seen on a screen bigger than four inches. As such, get ready for low-poly geometry, T-posed characters, and structural issues. It’s not all bad though, this could be a great stepping-off point for your own custom project! Some in the Models Resource community create their own custom designs, which can be pretty interesting and printable.
- Search: You can search by game, character, prop name, and more!
- Quality and authenticity: Models Resource sources directly from games, so they’re definitely authentic, but they can need a bit of work as they’re often pretty low poly.
- Pricing: As a community project put together by video game enthusiasts, all models are free.
- Printing: The printability is very poor “as is”. Expect to put in some work to get these ready for your printer.
Gumroad
Gumroad is a generic marketplace that sells a bit of everything. It’s not specifically meant for 3D models, so just like Patreon and Etsy, it doesn’t feature 3D previews or similar tools. In terms of anime creations, the selection is rather limited, though we did find this Megumin model and this quite elaborate Renamom from the Digimon series.
It’s not unusual to find Patreon creators listing single models for sale on Gumroad, so it might be a good alternative for those interested in an artist’s work without a monthly obligation.
- Search: It’s quite hard to source models using keywords like “anime”, “3D model” or “3D printing”. Ironically, it’s easier to use “stl” and do a deep dive into the thousands of results. Definitely far from optimal, but if you enjoy the search, there’s gold to be mined!
- Quality and authenticity: The quality is pretty high overall, but the quantity and unicity of models simply aren’t there.
- Pricing: Price is contained, with most models going for less than $15.
- Printing: Some of them are perfected for 3D printing, while others aren’t. Overall, they’ll require a bit of pre-processing in the slicer.
Etsy
Etsy has always been a 3D print-friendly platform. It’s the go-to for small businesses that want to sell printed parts to those who don’t own a printer. If interested, you might want to consider starting a 3D printing business.
Alongside small-scale operations, Etsy hosts a variety of modelers and designers, and the choice of models is quite impressive. Among the many, we were able to find a cute Totoro Family and a diorama of Tanjiro and Nezuko from Demon Slayer.
However, being pretty unregulated, there are many models offered for sale without the permission of the author, and it can be difficult to spot the difference between legitimate artists and those selling stolen art. So, proceed with caution and only purchase from Etsy shops that you’re confident are selling lawfully.
- Search: Etsy has a surprisingly intuitive search for such a huge site. Keywords like “.stl anime” show pertinent results.
- Quality and authenticity: The quality is more than decent. The variety of the characters portrayed is also great.
- Pricing: When the pricing is too low, around $3 to $6, it probably means that it’s stolen. If it’s too good to be true, it’s probably not true. A genuine creation usually goes for $15 or higher.
- Printing: Many models are perfected for 3D printing, with a few exceptions.
Patreon
As the name suggests, Patreon allows users to support artists and creators of all kinds (with a varying monthly subscription). Usually, the designer uploads a few models each month that can be downloaded by patrons. Depending on the tier and price paid, the patron is entitled to different perks, like access to all the previously released models or sign-in bonuses.
With the focus being on modelers rather than the models, it’s hard to pinpoint a precise figure that we liked. While searching, we came across talented creators like AnimuAnimu, Sekai 3D Models, Inaki Sculpts, and Nomnom Figures. Overall, it’s common to find artists that prepare their creations for 3D printing, pre-supporting and orienting them.
- Search: It’s almost impossible to discover a new creator or find a specific model with the search function. Word of mouth is the fastest way.
- Quality and authenticity: The quality is great, and close contact with the artist makes troubleshooting easier. All the models are unique and portray a vast array of characters.
- Pricing: It can vary depending on the creator. Usually, it’s between $4 and $15 per month.
- Printing: Many modelers sculpt specifically for 3D printing, both for resin and FDM machines.
Japanese Sites
Ironically, it’s a lot harder to find anime models on Japanese sites, as Japanese fans are generally a lot more cautious than overseas fans when it comes to creating something around owned IP.
This is largely due to major Japanese companies being quite heavy-handed in the past when it came to protecting their brands. What might be considered fandom and brand engagement overseas has, at times, earned the ire of various companies in Japan. Many fan creators feel it’s not worth the risk or choose to post their creations under pseudonyms to avoid any potential repercussions.
Times are changing, though, and several companies are offering more clarity about what’s okay and providing routes to licensed low-key fan works. Below, we’ll highlight a few websites that are focused on original content and what they offer. So get out your Google Translate, and let’s take a look!
Modelabo
Modelabo is similar to Thingiverse, offering a wide range of models for various uses. While there are only a handful of models based on existing IP, lots of original character designs can be found here. These vary in style, so you might need to spend some time to find something you like.
- Search: It’s what you would expect, assuming you can type in Japanese! If not, Google Translate is your friend here.
- Quality and authenticity: The site doesn’t deal in fan work too much, but what’s there can look pretty good.
- Pricing: All models are free.
- Printing: Like Thingiverse, most of what you will find on Modelabo is printable.
Niconi Solid
Sometimes referred to as Japan’s YouTube, Niconico is primarily a video site. It’s also the home of various Miku Miku Dance (MMD) channels, which feature adorable anime characters performing dance routines. From time to time, creators release the models of their performers, allowing you to download them and pose them as you like. The specific section is Niconi Solid, their 3D repository for files and projects. The items range from sceneries and dioramas to figures, food, and accessories.
- Search: We’d recommend searching “MMDモデル配布あり” (model distribution available) to find 3D content.
- Quality and authenticity: Some of these are truly exciting and colorful characters!
- Pricing: Some models are free, while others require an internal currency to be unlocked.
- Printing: Like Models Resource, expect to have to pull these into a 3D editor to prepare them for printing.
Shade3D
Lastly, say hi to Hanako! Shade3D isn’t a collection of 3D models, but rather 3D modeling software made in Japan. They’ve provided various examples of 3D printer-ready models, including the anime-esque Hanako.
Since she came up on almost every Japanese blog we read about 3D printable models, we thought it was worth a mention to wrap things up. They’ve also got some very impractical but cool iPhone cases ready to print!
- Search: It’s not possible to search for models on the site, but there is a dedicated page for Marketplace content created by the community.
- Quality and authenticity: Hanako is definitely anime style!
- Pricing: All models are free.
- Printing: It’s super easy as all models are designed to be ready-to-print.
License: The text of "Anime Figures 3D Print/STL Files: The Best Sites of 2023" by All3DP is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.