Priming Grey or Black

[ninja6fett]

My marines are a black base for their armor. But when I prime black I feel that I have trouble making sure that my basecoat is covering everything it should. Should I prime grey instead and basecoat black over that? Does it work any better? what are the pluses and minuses of priming black or grey?

 

Thanks.

[JCynthia]

I think you should try grey and see if it works for you, you lose nothing once you try, but at least you will know for sure.

[Something Wycked]

Certain primers, such as Army Painter, work fine as a base coat as well- so if you use Army Painter black primer, your models are basecoated, too. (As long as you like the color/gloss, of course.)

[plasman]

Personally I use Citadel’s Charadon Granite (dark grey) as a primer, it works fine.

[Subtle Discord]

I'm just going to toss in some thoughts here, based on what you wrote. No matter what primer you used, don't worry about it "covering everything". This is a common mistake many people make when priming - they want a perfect solid colour everywhere. Trying to get a even and complete coat of primer on every surface is a recipe for putting too much primer on the model, and filling in small details.

 

When you're priming, you want a solid coat of paint on all of the exposed surfaces that face out/up and will be touched regularly when you handle the miniature. It is perfectly fine for some places to have only a light mist/ghosting of primer. In some places on the underside of the model you may even find there is little-to-no primer at all. This is fine. This light coat will be more than enough to get your acrylic paint layers to 'grip'.

 

Once you've let the primer dry (24-to-48+ hours) then go in and brush on your true 'base colour', giving the miniature an all-over coat of paint to unify the colour, and get in all of the little nooks-and-crannies where the primer will have missed. Make sure this first layer is rather watered down, so you're just adding a thin coat of paint as your acrylic paint base. For example, I paint a lot of Black, but I don't 100% rely on the primer to make every surface Black. I always paint a thin layer of Black on everything before starting.

 

In most cases, the colour of your primer is chosen to help make the future painting easier, but not to 'stand on its own'. Dark colour schemes will usually benefit from a dark base like Black or Grey. Light colour schemes will be brighter, and usually easier to apply, if they are painted on White. And some colours will benefit from having a primer colour that compliments future colours. Red is a good example in the last case - A good Red primer will speed up the process of getting a nice even Red base on the model before adding other colours. but as before, you're not relying on the Red prier to make every surface perfect, that is what the 'thin all-over unifying first paint layer' is for.

[IdOfEntity]

Subtle Discord, thank you.

 

This is why I don't like people using their primer as their base coat. They try to get a perfect coating, and end up destroying details.

 

This is also why Black, Grey, and White are the best choices for primer. Any basecoat you pick and work up well from one of them.