Family Painting: Arcadia Quest - Beyond the Grave

Remember how much fun the G-Force had painting Arcadia Quest and then the Riders expansion? Well, while we were playing through Riders, I saw that Beyond the Grave went on a great sale online, so I jumped on it. I had not picked up my brushes for a bit, but once I primed the Beyond the Grave minis and showed them to the kids, they were very excited to get going. I think we painted this set in just over a week. Hurrah for summer schedule!

We started with the Skelebones, which come in two sculpts.

Skelebones by me, my wife, and #3 Son

Skelebones by sons #1, #2, and #4

I think we all expected these to be standard skeleton minis but they're really not: they have arms and legs rather than just bones. This is indeed some dark magic. I thought they were pretty fun to paint and that everyone did a nice job. Notice the nice glowing eyes on #1 Son's model. I should also mention that I left #4 son (who is 5) to his own devices most of the time, leaving him to mix and thin his paints. Sometimes I would notice that he had not thinned nor thought to mix them and give him a hand, but this is all pretty much his own work. Not too bad for a little guy!

Slasher Zombies by me and my wife

The Skelebones were the only minion with six copies, so in the next painting session, my wife and I completed the Slasher Zombies shown above. Again, I had a good time with this one. For the armor, I painted it all in purple then undercoated the trim in white before painting it in red. I believe my wife tried to leave the primer showing for the red on hers and had more frustration. I like how the face turned out on mine, and I think my wife did a great job on the facial highlights on hers, too. I think she wanted the brains on hers to be more pink but had a hard time getting a good tone. For mine, I had a pretty good plan going into it, starting with a mid pink, darkening the recesses, and highlighting to get a wet look.

Axe Flinger Zombies by the Boys (in age order)

While Mom and Dad worked on the Slasher Zombies, the boys worked on these much simpler Axe Flinger zombies. #3 Son interpreted the skin color to be much brighter than his brothers did, but that's fine. Purple skin and white hair is taken from the card art, but it is kind of a strange combination. #1 Son is doing a great job with his highlights and shadows these days, and I think we can see that #2 Son is on the cusp of this as well. If he took a bit more time to drop a little Nuln Oil around those eyes, for example, he would get a lot of bang for his buck. He's ten years old and doesn't like to sit and focus on a mini as long as I do, but I think as he develops patience and if he has desire, he could reach the next level. Also, I would be remiss not to say those are darned good pupils by the youngest boy.

Necromancers by #1 and #4 Sons

The next painting session was also a 4-2 split on models, and I let them pick their preferences in ascending age order. Sons #1 and #4 both picked Necromancers. Once again, #1 son really nailed it, and I think the nice paint job is accentuated by a nicely balanced color scheme. On the right is a really great job for a five year old, on a figure that I can't help but call "The Necromancer with the Derpy Eyes." He may show up in a campaign someday.

Ghosts by me, my wife, #2 Son, and #3 Son

I knew when I first opened up the game that the ghosts would be an interesting painting challenge, given that they are practically monochromatic. Four of us painted them while the other two worked on the Necromancers. The shade color on mine is arguably too dark for a ghost; it's certainly a bit darker than I intended, which I didn't realize until my wife asked about it and we held our side by side. It makes my ghost look a bit more manic, but that's not necessarily bad. #3 Son saw it all as basically one tone, but #2 Son did a nice job getting variation in his. I don't know if he missed the red/magenta spots or purposefully left them blue.

You cannot tell so well from the picture, but my wife saw a Bride of Frankenstein streak in the ghost's hair that I didn't notice. It's a streak of dark blue on the left side of the head. In the card art, I only read it as a shadow, but when I looked at her paint job, I think she captured what the artist intended. 

At this point, we were out of minions, and the rest of the painting was done in the evenings by my wife, my two older boys, and me. Here they are in no particular order.

The Black Brothers by #1 Son

My eldest son wanted to paint the figure on the right, and he basically finished it one night, so we also gave him the one on the left to paint. A positive result of this is that they really look like they go together. For the black armor, he went for a non-metallic metals (NMM) approach, which I guess I didn't really understand when he asked what I thought about NMM. Personally, I avoid it because it's so hard to get right. I didn't realize it was what he was going for here; I thought it was more of a painted or patina armor. In any case, I think for tabletop quality it's great: the bright white highlights sell the idea of glint. Looking closer, it doesn't have quite the dynamic range to sell it, but hey, who's looking closer? I think the paint job is helped by the fact that the armor is not really noteworthy, so it's easy to read as "black armor." The facial expressions of these two characters are the focal points, and he really nailed those parts. The swords, too, are much more interesting than I initially gave them credit for: he got a nice shine on them that does not draw attention but really sells the story.

Frank by my wife

My wife did a great job on Frank, although I think she doesn't give herself enough credit for it. The card art for Frank is, frankly, boring. Who puts a white shirt on a flesh golem? The sculpt is also rather featureless, just kind of bulbous. She struggled with white—who doesn't?—and was concerned that the result looks dirty. Personally, I think it's great for someone who only paints every few months at the kitchen table. 

The real seller here though is the bottom of the shoe. Get this: it is a perfectly flat sculpt. She painted in the texture that you can see on the picture. I had no idea until she pointed this out. Nice work, honey!

Dread King by #2 Son

The Dread King is the Big Bad from this expansion. The card art is compelling, and I think the sculpt, while maintaining the chibi style, is exciting. Before I had the chance to ask any of the boys if they had preferences, #2 Son asked if he could paint this one. I think he did a nice job on it, especially the flesh tones, where you can see his efforts at highlighting. He asked for advice halfway through, and I encouraged him to use the Nuln Oil and Agrax Earthshade (the only things we use besides the Vallejo Basic Colors set) to get more contrast around the teeth. Originally, they were hard to distinguish from the rest of the skill, but he got just the right amount of contrast to make them pop.

At this point, you may be wondering, "Paul, was there anything that made you buy this set besides the fun of family painting and of playing the game?" It turns out that there was. When I was considering whether or not to pull the trigger on this one, my brother informed me that there were sculpts based on characters from Young Frankenstein. Well, that's easy.

Dr. Spider and Ivan, painted by me

I painted Dr. Spider with the rest of the family as we worked on the figures shown above, but Ivan I actually painted at my regular painting station one evening while catching up on some podcasts. 

The first night working on Dr. Spider was spent entirely on his face, and I am really happy with how it turned out. The only real bummer here is that the card art features kinky Gene Wilder hair, but the sculpt has a completely different texture. Sure, it was probably easier to sculpt than curls, but it's not Gene Wilder hair. The serum he is holding was painted using techniques from this article, which I regularly reference for such things.

Ivan was pretty straightforward, once again the most time being spent on his face. It wasn't until I was painting the eyes that I discovered another very disappointing difference between the art and the sculpt. The card art clearly has Marty Feldman eyes, but the sculpt just his big eyes facing forward. It wasn't just a matter of painting the eyes, either, since the pupils are sculpted in. If I had noticed this ahead of time, I would have filled the pupils and redrilled them (or at least painted them) off in different directions. It's a lost opportunity on an otherwise fun model. The brains turned out fine, and I'm especially happy with the redness on the nose and cheeks.

In summary, then, a great time with the family, a fun time painting, but a minor disappointment that the figures don't look more like Gene Wilder and Marty Feldman. The older two boys are chomping at the bit to play, and so I imagine we'll get this to the table tonight. 

Thanks for reading!