Zenithal priming without an airbrush?

[Zephaniah Adriyen]

Is it possible, realistically, to do proper zenithal priming without an airbrush, say, with a normal set of brushes like you'd use for anything? I don't own an airbrush, and I'm minimum-wage, part-time, fast-food expensive-hobby levels of broke, so I can't afford to get one. However, with Contrast reacting SO strongly to the undercoat you give it, I'm wanting to experiment with zenithal priming. Is there a way to do it without an airbrush?

[Grotsmasha]

You can do Zenithal priming with normal spray cans. Prime in GW's black then once dry, then hit it again with your chosen lighter spray. Technically zenithal priming with a brush is possible, but significantly harder to achieve the same results. 

[N1SB]

I've only ever used spray cans for Zenithal, too. Before I even knew it was called "Zenithal", I was doing it with made up names like "Sin City Basecoating", here's a recent thing:

Things to note:

1. I should've used a grey. There's a graininess because I went black to white

2. The spray I use is a non-GW brand, Model Hobby. It's super-fine and very thin, so I normally spray 2 coats anyway. Thus, Zenithal with 1 dark coat and 1 light coat was not a huge leap. Just know how thick your own sprays are before experimenting, or use a throwaway mini (like a lot of people used Poxwalkers from the set because they just wanted the Primaris anyway).

[Kinstryfe]

You can do it just fine, it'll just take a lot more work than with spray cans or an airbrush. I do it a lot lately because I've been doing 1 model projects and don't feel like breaking out cans for one thing. If you want to really go crazy you can do a lot of preshading as well, which looks very nice under Contrast.

[Spacecow]

You can do it with a brush. Underpart needs to be dark ( dark grey primer or black) above part a lighter grey. Throw a wash over it and drybrush with light grey the above part ( stroke only up to down ) and maybe a second go with a white on where the main area of light needs to be.

 

But it will take more time and if it’s for contrast paint you want your surface to be as smooth as possible.

Eventhough spray cans can be a bit costly it might be worth looking into it .

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

It can be done with spray cans but unless it's a high quality version of the white, you'll get some of that spotty, grainy result. I used to buy the House of Color Wal-Mart store brand white, grey, and black, but the last time I went there a couple weeks ago, they now only carry gloss white and black and none of the other number of colors they used to. Which sucks, 'cause they were a dollar a can. 

 

I recently found a replacement for the flat black spray at Lowe's (the hardware store) called Project Source, which is also a dollar, but the only white they carry is gloss and no grey at all. 

 

If you can find some relatively inexpensive paint in your area, you'll want to prime the whole thing black, then hit it with the grey at an angle somewhere around 50-60 degrees, then the white from directly overhead. Depending on the figure, you might need to adjust the angles of the grey and white to hit areas where the light should be falling.

 

Here's a zenithal priming job I did earlier this year with just black and white spray cans. 

 

 

I didn't take any pictures of the next part, but I went in with a black and white paint (mixed together for grey areas as well) and used two-brush blending to smooth out the transitions and the grainy look. Something you could probably achieve with the white and black Contrast paints. 

 

And the end result:

 

 

I'd also suggest taking some pictures of the figure after the zenithal priming to use as a reference once you start painting just in case you put the paint on too thick and need a reminder of where the light and shadows are in that specific area.