Having trouble finding D&D figures suitable for painting. Lady Chance adores painting these and has for - literally - decades.
For whatever reasons I can’t seem to find a source online for her.
Can any of the teeming millions assist with a helpful link or two?
metal figures from ReaperMinatures
Also just googling searching for D&D pewter figuresmight yield some stuff esp. if you have specifics in mind.
Not sure though, maybe others know more
Are pewter paintable figures common? I thought the paintable figures tended to be lead whereas pewter figures tended to be used for non-paintable artwork? My info may be wildly out-of-date though; I haven’t painted figures for 22 years.
They don’t make lead figurines any more, if I understand correctly, as little kids eat them. The lead figurines were vastly more paintable and customizable, though.
http://www.darkswordminiatures.com/ is the only link I have that seems to be currently active.
I think this will do better in Cafe Society, where the crafters hang out. If that doesn’t do any good, we can try the Game Room later.
twickster, MPSIMS moderator
How many links do you want? 
Paizo These guys aren’t miniature producers but they have a big collection in their store from many different manufacturers.
Games Workshop - Go Warhammer - if you want Fantasy figures. (WH40k is science fiction), or they have an extensive Lord of the Rings line which is obviously fantasy too. Careful here however as some of the mini’s are plastics not white metal from these guys.
Avatars of War - Highly detailed figures. The sculptor is ex Game Workshop (see above) so the style is similiar.
Heresy Miniatures some great mini’s here and good people to deal with.
Repaer Mini’s One of the oldest players in the game - literally thousands of mini’s there. They were the official D&D mini producers back in 2nd Ed days.
Privateer Press - again they have two game systems one fantasy, one steampunky. They do some really nice mini’s.
Dark Sword Mini’s - really nice mini’s. They hold official licenses for mini versions of artwork by Jeff Easley, & Larry Elmore, amongst others (famous for iconic D&D style artwork for those not in the know). They also have a license for mini’s derived from George RR Martin’s Fire & Ice novels.
Black Orc Games - never ordered form these blokes but they have a large range.
Crocodile Games - big range focused on various egyptian & similiar warband factions, but they have quite a bit outside that range as well.
Wyrd Miniatures Not necessarily D&D fantasy style but a lot of general fantasy style mini’s, various beasties, etc.
That’s a few of the major mini manufacturers. I’ve got links to a lot more small producers who are probably more a hobby than a business, with only a handful of sculpts each.
Also, if your missus has any interest in painting fantasy football mini’s (Orcs, Trolls etc playing stylised Gridiron), I can post up some links to excellent manufacturers of those sort of mini’s.
The mini manufacturers switched away from lead years ago, for that reason. Most of them use pewter or a similar metal now, which is, indeed, a little harder.
IME, once you prime a mini, lead vs. pewter doesn’t make much of a difference for painting.
ToeJam’s already linked to Reaper, which is my favorite maker of minis these days.
Some other good ones:
Darksword http://www.darkswordminiatures.com/
Iron Wind Metals http://ironwindmetals.com/d/
Rackham http://www.rackham.fr/
Privateer Press http://privateerpress.com/
It’s been a while since I painted miniatures with any regularity. From what I remember Reaper makes some fairly good quality generic miniatures for a reasonable price.
You’re thinking of Ral Partha which started in the 1970s, was bought by some other company in the 90s, and ended up going totally out of business sometime in 2000-2002. Ral Partha made a lot of miniatures and paints I used in the early 90s. They produced minis for D&D’s “Battlesystem” game as well as mechs for FASA’s Battletech line.
Lead to Pewter: Was it concern for the children or having to jump through environmental regulations to produce lead products that caused manufacturers to use the more expensive pewter?
Well there you go. I was sure Reaper had a license from TSR at some point. but apparently not from what I can track down. I must of been thinking of Ral Partha. Now that I think about it I think their catalogue is now owned by IronWind, which someone has posted a link to above.
Man, I was beaten to the punch by everyone.
I also recommend Reaper. My favorite for quite a while now.
Surprised that no one has mentioned it yet, but eBay has a huge selection of figures. A lot of OOP pieces can be found. And current miniatures can had for next to nothing.
Awesome thread - I love painting and buying minis for my DND games - I hate, hate, HATE the prepainted WOTC ones for anything other then generic monsters. Players always get more into their characters when they have a mini that they can paint themselves.
While GW minis are excellent, they are a larger scale than the old Ral Partha ones.
They are also insanely expensive.
Aw, I loved Ral Partha back in the day. Sorry to hear it folded.
You are correct; Iron Wind wound up with the old RP molds, and still makes many of them.
One thing to note, for players from the old days: the scale of D&D-style minis has crept up over the years. Your old Ral Parlha or Grenadier 25mm guys from the 1980s are going to be dwarfed by modern minis, which are often in “heroic 25mm” or 28mm scale. Reaper’s “Dark Heaven” line is generally a little more petite than their “Warlord” line, a lot of which seem to come in at well over 30mm.
Yeah, some of their Warhammer minis are frickin’ huge. Their LotR line is pretty comparable in size to Reaper, etc.
They do make some beautiful minis…but, I agree, they’re also expensive as hell.
Man. I used to love painting my miniatures. (I also had Battletech mini’s.) I would do it in between “game days”, and my mind would wander through the various things the groups I was in were doing, plotting and planning my next moments of derring-do.
Now, I got a computer to waste my time on, and my mini’s sit over in a corner, untouched for years.
Sometimes, I wish I could cast “time stop”.
Games Workshop have gone with ‘herioc’ 28mm size (so 30mm really) the last few years, so yep, pretty big scale wise. Although I got the impression from the OP it was more, painting for paintings sake then necassarily for use in a game.
Apparently one of the conditions for the license they have for LOTR mini’s, is the mini’s can’t be used with any of their other game systems, so the LOTR are true 25mm scale rather than 28mm or ‘heroic’ 28mm.
Games Workshop also has an even higher end resin line: Forgeworld
Most of the models are of the futuristic 40k line, but there are some fantasy type monsters too.
Incredible detail but they are even more expensive. (the biggest ones even top $1000 lol)