What are model making communities?

Communities for scale model builders working with plastic models, miniatures, and military figures. You will find dedicated forums and subreddits for hobbyists working across military, automotive, and sci-fi genres, with communities for sharing builds, painting tips, and kit reviews.

Where do most model making communities live?

Reddit is the most common platform in this report (60% of 10 listings).

Are most of these communities free?

100% are free to join. The rest require payment, an application, or both.

How big is a typical model making community?

Among listings with public size data, the average is 79K members and the median is 31K. The median is usually the better signal for a typical group because a few large ones inflate the average.

What do these communities usually include?

Forum is the most common (90%). Others that show up often include online/offline events and tools.

How does Hive Index collect this data?

Listings are submitted by community builders and researchers, reviewed for relevance, and updated with platform, feature, member, review, and traffic data where available.

Where can I see the full list?

The full directory is on Hive Index's Model Making topic page, where you can filter by platform, size, features, and more.

Model Making Communities Report: Stats, Platforms,...

Executive Summary

We analyzed 10 model making communities listed on Hive Index to understand where people gather, what these groups offer, and which communities attract the most interest.

The big picture: In this smaller sample, model making listings cluster on Reddit, while a few large groups pull member averages up.

Source: Hive Index community database · Updated 2026-05-14

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Communities: 10
Platforms: 2
Avg members: 79K
Median members: 31K

Where Model Making Communities Are Hosted

Reddit
6(60%)
Independent Platforms
4(40%)

Reddit leads (60% of listings).

Audience Size & Access

Community size

Tiny
<20 members
0(0%)
Small
20-100 members
0(0%)
Medium
100-1,000 members
0(0%)
Large
1,000-10,000 members
0(0%)
Huge
10,000-100,000 members
5(50%)
Massive
100,000-1M members
1(10%)
Gigantic
1M+ members
0(0%)

4 communities have unknown member counts.

Free vs paid

The average is much higher than the median (79K vs 31K), which usually means a few large groups are pulling the average up.

How Model Making Differs From Other Categories

Model Making is more free-to-join than typical Hive Index topics.

Metric	Model Making	Hive Index average
Free to join	100%	85%
Median members	31K	25K
Average members	79K	669K
Paid or apply-to-join	0%	15%
Topic pageviews / mo	109	714

Feature Mix

Common features appear in at least 15% of listings.

Common Features

Forum
90%
Online/Offline Events
20%
Tools
20%

Niche Features

Job Board
10%
Member Perks
10%

Forum appears on 90% of listings.

What Visitors Click

Outbound clicks / mo: 1

Most-clicked features

Online/Offline Events
1(100%)
Tools
1(100%)

Top-clicked listings

Cybermodeler
1(100%)

Groups with online/offline events picked up 100% of tracked clicks.

Trends

Founded year

1998

2011

2012

2016

3 communities have no founding year on file.

Most listed groups were founded around 2011.

Community Quality & Ratings

Only 1 community has ratings so far, so read this as a small sample.

5.0 average rating across 1 community.

Rated examples

r/modelmakers
Reddit · 5.0 stars · 328K members

Methodology & FAQ

Methodology

This report uses communities in the Hive Index database tagged as Model Making. We exclude removed or suppressed listings. Member counts, traffic, features, reviews, and ratings may vary by source and are updated periodically.

•We only have a handful of listings so far, so treat these numbers as directional.
•Last updated 2026-05-14

FAQ

: Communities for scale model builders working with plastic models, miniatures, and military figures. You will find dedicated forums and subreddits for hobbyists working across military, automotive, and sci-fi genres, with communities for sharing builds, painting tips, and kit reviews.
: Reddit is the most common platform in this report (60% of 10 listings).
: 100% are free to join. The rest require payment, an application, or both.
: Among listings with public size data, the average is 79K members and the median is 31K. The median is usually the better signal for a typical group because a few large ones inflate the average.
: Forum is the most common (90%). Others that show up often include online/offline events and tools.
: Listings are submitted by community builders and researchers, reviewed for relevance, and updated with platform, feature, member, review, and traffic data where available.
: The full directory is on Hive Index's Model Making topic page, where you can filter by platform, size, features, and more.

Keep exploring

Browse

All Model Making communities

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