By some wild chance are the figures available by themselves or only through purchase of the boardgames?
The figures are indeed available separately. But they are available only directly through Fantasy Flight Games.
http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_minisite_sec.asp?eidm=193&esem=2Wow, how much work was it and was they worth the price to repaint?
Not much work at all; I had to carefully pry them from their bases (they were glued on)- that was the hard part. Then I primed straight over the old prepaint with black acrylic, and then went to town with the paint.
I'm not sure about the sculpting quality of any of the humans (cultists, zombies, investigators etc.) - that, and they're smallish (true 25mm??) - but the monsters, I think, were well worth the price. ($3.99 each for the hound of tindalos and crawling one; $6.99 for the Wailing Writher, and $9.99 for the dark young.)
...And here's a pic (before being repainted) to give you an idea of what you get for the price. The gangster is from Copplestone Castings (to give you a reference for size.) The monsters came with bases specific for playing FFG board games- the bases pictured are my own.:
