Miniature Market is the "Go-To" resource for miniatures. I work almost exclusively with Nolzur's Marvelous Unpainted Minis, since I consider painting them an important part of the hobby and I love the quality of their sculpts in most cases.
Pre-painted miniatures are often not well painted, but if you don't have a steady hand, or plan to buy in bulk, getting a horde of zombies pre-painted can save a lot of time and effort.
Unpainted minis have the advantage of being more "generic" by default. As a blank canvas, an unpainted drow can stand in for any elf, while an unpainted goblin can stand in for any small humanoid.
My current project is to paint an "exemplar" for each of the creature types that I plan to use, and then leave the majority of them unpainted, so that I can get away with a smaller collection. Larger creatures tend to be more solitary, while smaller ones are often encountered in bulk, which is fortunate because the bigger the mini, the easier it is to paint.
Etsy. I love etsy. I bought a boat load of skeletons and lizardfolk off there. (I needed the lizardfolk ahead of Naerytar in ToD which my players ended up skipping.) Tents and giant spiders. I've gotten spell effect templates from there and a pretty decent looking red dragon.
I haven't gone this route yet but have been toying with it. Hero Forge is where I get the PC minis (two of my players just introduced new characters so everyone's getting new minis for Christmas) and have thought about creating NPC minis using their system. (Only works for humanoid player race NPCs.)
For those DM's that use minis, Where you usually find minis pre-painted/un-painted?
At my local game shop (for unpainted).
I've ordered from Etsy many times for unpainted and enjoyed the results. I can suggest some sellers if you're interested.
Amazon, Cool Stuff Inc, Miniature market. And I am hearing good things about 3D printers.
No Gaming is Better than Bad Gaming.
I have heard good thing about 3d printers as well, bad thing I don't own one
Yes please Im woul like to check those sellers
Miniature Market is the "Go-To" resource for miniatures. I work almost exclusively with Nolzur's Marvelous Unpainted Minis, since I consider painting them an important part of the hobby and I love the quality of their sculpts in most cases.
Pre-painted miniatures are often not well painted, but if you don't have a steady hand, or plan to buy in bulk, getting a horde of zombies pre-painted can save a lot of time and effort.
Unpainted minis have the advantage of being more "generic" by default. As a blank canvas, an unpainted drow can stand in for any elf, while an unpainted goblin can stand in for any small humanoid.
My current project is to paint an "exemplar" for each of the creature types that I plan to use, and then leave the majority of them unpainted, so that I can get away with a smaller collection. Larger creatures tend to be more solitary, while smaller ones are often encountered in bulk, which is fortunate because the bigger the mini, the easier it is to paint.
Etsy. I love etsy. I bought a boat load of skeletons and lizardfolk off there. (I needed the lizardfolk ahead of Naerytar in ToD which my players ended up skipping.) Tents and giant spiders. I've gotten spell effect templates from there and a pretty decent looking red dragon.
I haven't gone this route yet but have been toying with it. Hero Forge is where I get the PC minis (two of my players just introduced new characters so everyone's getting new minis for Christmas) and have thought about creating NPC minis using their system. (Only works for humanoid player race NPCs.)
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As for sellers on Etsy, the ones I've purchased from are:
Veridian Gaming
Reality at Work (bought spell effect templates from them)
Giant Turtle Creations (I've bought like all his spell trackers practically)
3D Print Works Shop for dice jails
GSD Paint- I got a sea hag mini that was pretty good from them (un-painted)
Archania Workshop (got a couple Sphinx minis from them that looked great)
Retro Fools
My Homebrew Backgrounds | Feats | Magic Items | Monsters | Races | Subclasses