In the Star Fleet Battles facebook group there's a guy named Larry who has been using a laser cutter to make pretty decent looking flat minis. Dig it:
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| The hexagons are custom bases, presumably the two will be connected by some sort of dowel rod. |
Jim Stevenson's Starship Schematics Database ought to be chock full of image files that could be used for this sort of thing.
And of course you could do flat upright D&D figures this way, rotating the view to the front or side rather than top. You'd just need good black and white art.