Family Painting Clank! Legacy: Acquisitions Incorporated

Last year, I bought Charterstone as a family game for Christmas. Playing through the campaign with my wife and two oldest sons may have been my favorite board gaming experience. We also love Clank!, and so I have been excited for Clank! Legacy since I first heard about it. Once the positive reviews started coming in, I ordered a copy while I could and sat on it for this year's Christmas game.

We are all excited to get started, so last night, we did a "one night paint job" on the four hero miniatures. My sons have always used cheap craft paints for their miniatures, but for Christmas, I got them the Vallejo Model Color Basic Set. They enjoyed working with the new paints, although I think they will appreciate them even more as we move into more relaxed painting sessions. Both commented on how quickly the paints dried compared to the craft paints. Indeed, when I've painted with them using craft paints, the gloopiness and slow dry times are two things I found most frustrating, compared to doing quick, thinned layers with VMC.

My intention was that we would draft figures in age order, but before I could suggest that, the two boys had already picked theirs. #1 Son (12) wanted to be the "child in the dungeon" figure. This riffs off of his regular figure when we play Thunderstone Quest, since he almost always plays the one that looks like it's just a kid thrown into the battle. #2 Son (9) chose the elf, I think because he likes elves, although he was not specific in his choices. This left the tough lady fighter and the shouting dwarf, so I took the dwarf and let my wife take the other.

I used the airbrush to zenithal prime the figures, doing just a little bit of cleaning up of mold lines. Each of us will be playing our traditional board game colors, and we worked those colors into the models. Here's mine, blue:

Blue was a challenging color to put on a dwarf, which I tend to think of in muted and earthy tones. The only thing I could see to make blue at first was the tabard. As I worked with it, I realized I could do some blue trim on the helmet as well. I finished the model by using the same blue on the base, which I think ties it together.

Although we had a verbal agreement for one-session painting, "No shading, no highlighting", I couldn't help myself from doing just a little. I used a darker brown to pin wash the backpack, silver drybrushing to highlight the chainmail, two drybrush highlights on the beard, just a little brown to get more definition on the muscles, and P3 Armor Wash on the hammer. Otherwise, I used thinned paints to let the zenithal priming do a lot of the work.

This is my wife's warrior. She plays yellow, and so it made sense for the big, sweeping cape to take that color. She pointed out that it made the character look more like a superhero than a fighter, but between the cartoonish sculpt and the strange pose, I think it fits.

Although the plan was to use the boys' new Vallejo paints, I also brought down a few secret weapons from my painting arsenal, including the aforementioned P3 Armor Wash. I had really brought it down for this figure, since I figured my wife could do a quick silver paint on the plate mail and then use the armor wash for instant tabletop quality. I admit I was a bit dumbfounded when I saw her working on the orange! However, as she kept working on it, I could see it coming together. The very last step was adding the white trim around the armor plates, which I think really makes it pop. She spent three hours on this one, while I spent two on the dwarf, and the boys spent about 1-1/2 hours on theirs. I think she did a fine job, especially given the constraints.

Here's the dungeon kid—the red character. I recall my son starting with the Flat Flesh color in the basic set and then commenting that he wanted darker skin. I don't know what inspired him to do so, but I think it looks quite good: dark hair, dark skin, and bright blue eyes. He put some thoughtful discoloration into the crate as well, although it's subtle. I believe he called it "a moldy crate". Notice the nice job he did with the flagstone base as well. The whole thing has a subdued palate that really brings out the red and warm browns.

Finally, here's the green player's elf. I think it's pretty solid for a nearly-ten-year-old painter. The robe is a little splotchy, which is an unintended side effect of trying to work with the zenithal priming, like I wrote about in my JiME post: if you do one thin coat, it looks fine, but if you touch it up, you get splotches of higher saturation. He added a little thinned gold to the hair to give it some sparkle, but I'm afraid that is lost in the photo and was also greatly subdued by the varnish. He got a nice color for blonde hair, which is hard to do. He also really nailed the cobblestone base.

If you look carefully you can also see that he did some weathering on the robes, stippling on a little brown. I have written before about how I tend to lack the courage to dirty up a figure I spend so long to paint, but my son and I do watch several painters on YouTube who regularly incorporate weathering as a finishing touch. It's neat to see how he was inspired by this.

After the boys were done, and while my wife was finishing up her warrior, I retreated to my study to work on the dragon miniature. Here's it is:

I laid down the base colors by wet-blending three colors: a mix of VMC Deep Sky Blue and Grey, a mix of VMC Dark Blue and Black, and a mix of Black with the first mix. These were heavily mixed with Vallejo Glaze Medium to give me lots of open time for wet-blending. I let that set overnight. This morning, I mixed up a wash of roughly 3:1:4 blue, green, and black inks. I used this to pin wash the edges and accent all the scratches, using a second brush to feather out the wash in many places. The last step was just to paint the eyes with a mix of white and a touch of green, followed by a glaze of green ink to get just a little more green. All told, this was also just about two hours of painting; unlike the heroes, though, I think if I had more time I would probably just do it like this anyway: as an iconic representation of the draconic villain, I think it's a good piece.

Here they are all together, ready for adventure! The plan is to get the game to the table later tonight. That gives me a few hours to come up with a clever name for my dwarf.