Do not order a pet memorial figurine until every photo is in and you have compared previews. For most people that takes about a week, so our advice is simple: not in the first week. Gather the photos, choose the photo and the pose, and only after that the size and finish. A figurine is shaped first by its photo: each design starts from one picture, and no size or finish can add detail that the photo never showed. And once work on it starts, the order is final.
The week is about logistics: it is roughly how long it takes to get the photos in from everyone who has them. If you have them all and have compared previews sooner, you are ready sooner.
Why a pet memorial figurine should not be rushed
A card, a candle or a meal are the pet memorial gifts that belong in the first days. A likeness is a set of choices you live with, and our refund policy is plain about what happens after checkout:
- You can cancel for a full refund only until work starts, and work can begin soon after checkout.
- Every piece is made to order from your photo, so there are no change-of-mind returns, including for choosing the wrong size.
- Small differences in likeness or colour shade compared with the preview are not treated as a defect.
So do your trying, comparing and changing your mind in the free design stage, before checkout, where it costs nothing.
Week one: gather the photos
After a pet dies, the good photos are usually spread across several people. Collect them into one folder before you judge any of them:
- Other people's phones. Partners, children, parents and whoever looked after them on holiday often took the photos you never saw.
- Your own library, searched properly. Filter by date and work through year by year, and try typing their name or "dog" or "cat" into your photo app's search; many apps can group pictures of a pet.
- Places people forget. The shelter or breeder's adoption listing, updates from a dog-walker, sitter or boarding kennel, old social media posts and backups of old phones.
- Printed photos. Lay the print flat, hold your phone parallel to it, turn the flash off and let daylight come from the side, so there is no glare.
- Videos. A paused frame usually holds less detail than a photo, but it may be the only record of how they held their head. Keep it as a reference for your notes.
Ask for originals. Messaging apps often compress photos, so a picture forwarded in a chat can lose the fine detail of a coat. A shared album or sending the photo as a file keeps the full version. A short message is enough: "I'm putting together photos of Pepper. Could you send me any you have, as originals if you can, through the shared album?" Keep the folder in two places. Phones get replaced and accounts get closed, and this is the part of the process that should not wait.
Decide which age you are remembering
The photos you collect will span their whole life, and they will not all show the same animal. A cat at three, sleek and bright-eyed, looks different from the same cat at sixteen. The figurine will show whichever age the photo shows.
Decide this before you choose. If you want to remember them as they were at the end, use the clearest recent photo and write the grey muzzle or the thinner coat into the special instructions. If you would rather remember them in their prime, a younger photo is fine, and often a sharper one. Either way, choose the age on purpose.
The photo you love and the photo the model can read
Many memorial guides say personality matters more than polish, and for a framed print that is often true. For a 3D figurine we only partly agree. Each design starts from one flat photo, and what the camera did not see, such as the far side of the body or the back of the head, has to be filled in. Every MYTHUMI pet figurine starts with an artist refining the digital model, but that refinement starts from what the photo shows. A face lost in backlight or a dark coat against a dark sofa leaves less to work from.
A quick test, our own rule of thumb: open the photo at full size and zoom in on the eyes and one patch of markings. If you cannot see where the eye ends and the fur begins, or where a marking stops, the preview will probably lose it too. For a black or very dark pet, pick the photo where the eyes catch the light and the coat shows highlights rather than a flat silhouette.
If your favourite photo passes that test, use it. If it does not, upload the clearest one and put the personality into two other places:
- The pose. The pet creator offers Sitting, Standing, Lying Down, Play Bow, Walking, Running and Curling Up. Choose the pose they spent most of their life in. An old dog who slept by the radiator for his last five years belongs in Lying Down or Curling Up, however handsome he looked running at two.
- The special instructions. Write down what the photo misses: the ear that never stood up, the white tip on the tail, the collar they always wore, the white hairs on a black chest. Our artists work from those notes when they refine the model.
Our general guide to choosing the right photo covers light, angles and markings in more depth.
Make two or three previews before you pay anything
The preview in our custom pet figurine creator is free; you pay only if you order. Take your two or three best candidates and make a preview from each. You can start the next design once the current one's 3D model is ready, and there is a daily allowance of free designs, so this may take more than one sitting.
For example, say photo A is the favourite, taken against a bright window, and its preview has lost the white blaze on the chest. Photo B, from a sister's phone, was taken side-on in even light, and its preview keeps the blaze and the shape of the ears. B is the one to order, and the expression you loved in A can go into the notes.
Look through every available view of each 3D model, especially the parts no single photo showed. Ask the person who knew the pet best which preview is them. Previews are AI-generated and approximate: they show the pose, style and overall look we work from, and the finished print can differ a little in likeness, colour and fine detail. If a preview is only close, try another photo before ordering.
Size and finish: let the coat and the shelf decide
The custom pet figurine costs:
- Full-colour print: 6 cm $79.99, 8 cm $129.99, 10 cm $199.99.
- Artist Hand-Finished (printed in white resin, then painted by our artists): 8 cm $199.99, 10 cm $259.99, 15 cm $299.99, 18 cm $359.99, 20 cm $399.99, 25 cm $499.99, 30 cm $599.99.
Prices are in US dollars and correct at the time of writing (October 2026); if you shop in Canadian dollars or euros, checkout shows the converted amount. The product page always has the current price.
At $199.99 the same money buys a 10 cm full-colour print or an 8 cm hand-finished piece. Our judgement for a memorial is to let the coat decide. A pet with a pale, plain coat, such as a yellow Labrador or a cream cat, has little marking detail to lose, so the extra 2 cm of the larger print is what you will notice. A pet whose markings were the whole of their look, such as a tabby, a brindle or a merle, is the case for hand-finishing: fine detail is simplified more on small pieces, and on a hand-finished piece our artists paint the fur, eyes and markings by hand. You give up a little size for markings that read as theirs.
On a smaller budget, the 6 cm print at $79.99 still shows the pose, the colours and the overall shape, but expect fine markings to be simplified. At 15 cm you can choose either finish (at the time of writing the hand-finished piece, US$299.99, costs less than the full-colour print, US$449), and every larger size is hand-finished; go there when the piece will be the main thing on a shelf or mantel, not one item among several.
Sizes are measured on the longest side, base not counted: the height for a sitting pet, the length for a lying one, so a pet lying down or curled up sits lower and wider than the same size sitting. A memorial is usually seen from close by, on a shelf beside a framed photo or on a bedside table, so it does not have to be large to be seen; the paper-strip test in our size guide shows how a size looks in the spot you have in mind.
The base: fifteen characters
The display base is optional and free. The round black base has no text. Choose a square base, in marble or brown, if you want words on it: a name of up to 15 characters, optional dates, and a tick box marked "This is a memorial piece", which adds "Forever loved" to the base and a handwritten card.
Fifteen characters is tight. Use the name they answered to: "Biscuit" fits, "Sir Biscuit of Elm Row" does not. The memorial line is optional too. Some people want the figurine to look like the pet on an ordinary afternoon, with only a name, and keep other words for the frame beside it. The base text is part of the order, so settle it before checkout.
If you are buying it for someone else
We would not surprise a grieving friend with a figurine. For a memorial, the photo, the pose and the words are the owner's choices, and the piece cannot be changed once work starts.
Offer it instead. "I'd like to have a figurine of Pepper made for you, whenever you're ready" leaves the timing with them. Then help with collecting photos from everyone who has them. Sit with them while they make the previews, let them pick, and pay at the end.
If there is a date you want it for
A memorial has no deadline, but a birthday, the first anniversary or Christmas might. Our shipping policy estimates production of 7 to 10 business days, counted from the order, then Standard shipping transit of 5 to 12 business days to the US, 8 to 10 to Canada and 10 to 25 to the EU, without customs time. That is roughly 12 to 22 business days for the US, about four and a half weeks at the upper end, 15 to 20 for Canada, about four weeks, and 17 to 35 for the EU, about seven weeks. These are estimates, and hand-finishing can add time.
Add a week for the photo stage and you get our working figures for Standard shipping: start at least five weeks before the date in Canada, six weeks before in the US and eight weeks before in the EU, longer for a hand-finished piece, and customs time comes on top. Express shipping (3 to 7 business days in transit, for the US and the EU) shortens the wait but costs more. If you have less time than that, contact us before you order so we can tell you what is realistic, and keep the photo stage anyway. For Christmas, our post on when to order a figurine for Christmas works through the dates.
When a MYTHUMI figurine is the wrong choice
- For the garden or a grave. Our figurines are made as display pieces, and thin parts such as ears and tails are delicate. For outdoors, look at an engraved stone or marker.
- For a young child to hold. They are not toys and should be kept away from young children. A child who wants something to hug is better served by a soft toy or a photo book; the figurine can stand on a shelf they can see.
- For keeping ashes. Our figurines are not urns. If you want the ashes and the likeness together, choose an urn and stand the figurine beside it.
- When no photo shows their face clearly. Try a preview anyway; it costs nothing. If none looks like them and they were a typical example of their breed, our ready-made dog figurines and ready-made cat figurines may come closer than a custom piece from a poor photo. For a mixed breed, a ready-made figure is unlikely to look like them.
Before you check out
- Photos gathered from everyone, originals kept in two places.
- The age you want to remember decided.
- Two or three previews made and compared, with someone who knew them.
- Pose chosen, and the details the photo misses written in the instructions.
- Size and finish chosen by coat and shelf, not by price alone.
- Base text checked: 15 characters or fewer, memorial line or not.
- Any date checked against at least five weeks (Canada), six weeks (US) or eight weeks (EU).
Then order from the MYTHUMI pet creator. If you are unsure about a photo, the MYTHUMI support team can help before you upload: get in touch.