Dave,
At one point I passed up buying a metal version of the Storm Golem for around $5 off NobleKnight.com. The details were much more crisp on the metal version, the painter's release for Mage Knight. The Plastic one is still a great little sculpt though, I really like it. It primed super easy and help the finer(read, only details it had) details well. I didn't want to go as far as stripping it, but I've heard the details are better if you do. Overall, I think you can pick it up pretty cheap around.
The Mage Knight figures I have left over from the first run had a couple little gems in there. All the golems, Storm, Sword, and the little one I can't remember the name of, would make great automatons/steampunk creations. They had a couple nice Worm creatures(Corpse Worms or something similar, multi-mouthed worms), a Weresabertooth(would look fine as a real Sabertooth), and several other fun little bits. If you are after simple creatures, you might look into the Dungeons and Dragons board games, there are bears, snakes, spider swarms, rat swarms, and a bunch of other great pieces with general uses. Course, you'd probably just make some out of tin foil, bubble gum, and bits of dirt.