Question about the D&D Minis. (plastic and metal)

Ideas for minis...

A couple of thoughts here on miniatures:

The least expensive thing is to goto Wizards website where they have the artwork for each publication and print. I copy the graphic and paste into Excel where I've setup one inch and two inch square blocks. Then I print these out and they fit perfectly on my Chessex battlemat. Cost = paper. For a bit of durability I've glued these onto Games Workshop one inch or two inch bases – cost you $10 in bases but it helps.

Personally I think the method of distribution for Wizards miniatures sucks. They should have sold them in clear packaging (could still do warbands or groups). Therefore I don't purchase any in the packaging. Instead I go to sites like www.popularcollections.com and purchase them individually. I get all the cheap common and uncommon and skip the expensive stuff.

I love to paint minis and you can see my work at http://ourworld.cs.com/rickajrs - Reaper Miniatures makes the best out there, but you have to be careful in some respects because they got screwed in the 3.0 to 3.5 conversion of monsters going from 5x10 to 10x10 basing. They have awesome 1" metal square basis which I use, however the 10x10 monsters I have to put on the GW 2" plastic base.

Hopefully some of these ideas work out for you. Good luck.

Rick Anderson

Rick, I paint minis too and wanted to check out your page but got a page not found error.

ooops...

crap - put an s on the end of that:

http://ourworld.cs.com/rickajrs

That should do it! Oh, and if you scroll down to the bottom of the home page you'll see a bunch of updates - that's the best way to view my work. The top page has minis archived by miniature company which is ok if you like a specific product.

Rick Anderson

Fantastic minis Rick!

Thanks everyone for the input and advice. It sounds like I do have a few options. Trouble is, I am just so picky about the way things look and match (it's the OCD you know?). But I guess that's the thing, if I don't want to (or can't) spend money then I guess there are not alot of options. I have made a few minis out of Sculpey. And I made a dryad and/or nymph by gluing a Poison Ivy HeroClix on a Sculpey base. Right now, I have started a Sculpey Beholder that I'll soon finish. I have a few of the paper mini .pdfs from various companies. The paper ones are pretty nice, but some of the spaces are inaccurate (they should be 10' when they are 5'). I guess we blame that on 3.5.

Another possibility would be not worrying about certain monsters til I actually see that I am going to need them. I mean at 1st Level the characters won't be fighting too many Beholders, Type V Demons (the one figure that I really, really want (and I know they haven't done one yet), Storm Giants or Huge Red Dragons.

Examples...

Hey Pogre - thanks for the comments - always nice when someone appreciates ones efforts.

CS - this is my first time posting an attachment - so we'll see if this thing really works! I must have several hundred minis and I still don't have enough! So every now and again I improvise - one of the examples is a centaur - of all the minis I don't have a centaur (I do now!) so I went to wizards website, copied the picture, pasted into excel, scaled the cell to be 2"x2" and print, cut and tape onto a GW monster square. Other two examples are a monster with two claws and a bug thingee with a beak - I drew these mid-game on a piece of paper with my pen and taped it to the GW monster square.

Not works of art, but it works. The base makes it the right size on the battlemat and gives it a bit of weight so that in the excitement the pieces of paper don't get blown out of place.

Hope this helps, because there will always be times that no matter how many minis you collect there will be that one monster which you don't have (beside the hundreds of monsters that are out there for which there is no mini at all).

Rick Anderson

Well, thanks Rick. I know what I got to do. It probably isn't healthy to obsess over miniatures. Two of each figure in the MM alone would be a near impossible feat. Besides, even if I had every mini I wanted, then knowing me I'd need one with each type of weapon. So, it's best I learn to temper myself now. I really do have a decent set. Plus I have a set of dragons from large up to Colossal of each dragon in the MM. They are the double-sided that you fold into the shape of a triangle.

It is a good lesson here at Christmas time to be thankful for what I have.

MerricB said:

The cheapest option? Trading.

Click to expand...

I would say the cheapest option would be theft. I wouldn't suggest that though. Could easily turn out to be the most expensive option.

I'll agree with the trading idea, though. Got some of my best minis from trades.

Luck in your endeavors!

Just putting in my plug for MaxMinis too. Great site.

For some monsters the Yu-Gi-Oh figurines are also good.

ChampaignSupernova said:

... no beholders ...

Click to expand...

Eh, use a mug.