Other Miniatures
In addition to the lines detailed to near exhaustion on this website, there are hordes of other miniature manufactures that regularly made at least as good if not better miniatures than the official D&D miniatures. For a complete listing of pretty much every miniature manufacturer and their lines, whether fantasy, sci-fi, horror or historical, please visit The Stuff of Legends. Here I will just cover a few lines which I personally find attractive of which I have a few or many, leaving out several other no less deserving lines.
Ral Partha
Ral Partha was founded in 1975 around the sculpting talents of a very young sixteen year old Tom Meier. The name of the company, Ral Partha, was that of a a D&D wizard player character. Ral Partha miniatures were largely a cut above the rest, especially when it came to detail. Fantasy lovers instantly fell in love with Ral Partha miniatures and many preferred them for D&D play above any official D&D miniatures. Eventually Ral Partha did obtain the rights to produce D&D miniatures, which they did for three times the length of any other supplier. Soon upon Wizards of the Coast acquiring TSR, Ral Partha was no longer welcome to produce miniatures for TSR and without the AD&D line, Ral Partha's largest area of profits were the Battletech miniatures that they were producing for FASA. FASA wanted greater control of their own miniatures and made it very clear to Ral Partha that they wanted to purchase Ral Partha and if they did not, they would pull Ral Partha's rights to produce their miniatures. Ral Partha had no choice but to sell out to FASA. Shortly thereafter FASA quite production of all their games and was bought out by Wizkids in 2001. Later that year, a new corporation was formed, Iron Wind Metals which continues to produce many of the old Ral Partha miniatures, though none of the official AD&D miniatures. Iron Wind Metals employs several people who worked for the original Ral Partha and the license miniatures from Ral Partha as well as from many of the Ral Partha sculptures who own the rights to their own figures. Iron Wind Metals is a saving grace to maintaining productivity of many wonderful classic miniatures. Though Iron Wind Metals does have a website, it is slow hunting through hundreds of miniatures, so if you are interested in that line, please check out the Iron Wind Metals catalog in my Catalogs section.
Reaper
Reaper had its start in fantasy miniatures in 1993 by purchasing the rights, molds and masters from the Heritage Dungeon Dwellers line. These were reproduced with new bases and new models were also sculpted. Eventually Reaper went on to found the Dark Heaven line which has grown into what is perhaps the most popular line of metal miniatures for fantasy role playing games available today. Later they founded the Warlord line of miniatures for their Warlord tabletop game. While the Dungeon Dwellers line has been discontinued, both the Dark Heaven and Warlord line of miniatures are excellent in every respect and offer many miniatures from the D&D world that were never cast by other manufacturers making these are excellent lines to check out if you need to fill in those missing monster spots (or if you just like very detailed minis). Both these lines are 28mm figures as compared to the 25mm figures used by all the earlier miniature lines, so at times they can look a bit oversized, but not so much as to be a problem. Warlord and Dark Heaven miniatures are completely documented at Reaper's website, here I will just post pictures of painted miniatures by various artists, just for the fun of it. The best source of Reaper Miniatures I have found is Miniature Giant where prices are less than anywhere else, including those found in eBay stores and, more importantly, they also offer excellent and friendly service. (If you do purchase from Miniature Giant, please submit my user name - Ernst, with your order so that both YOU and I get credit on everything we buy for the next 6 months!)