Priming Models - Newbie Question

[jus]

CAUTION - READ ME

Tamiya spray primer and I have a history. Most people claim to have no problems with it, but I would advise against tamiya primer. I've bought several cans of the stuff to trial it in every conceivable environment and my findings are thus:

1 - tamiya spray primer will do the job for you only on hot and dry days. The vapors will dry and adhere to plastic and metal surfaces leaving a nice prickly finish and should be fit for painting

2 - Never use on cold days. (i.e don't use as of now) the particles don't dry fast enough and will gloss over the mini, making it all smooth. It looks like a good finish until you realise that instead of making paint stick as primer should, it actually REPELs paint. An exercise in frustration, as its like applying paint to a suface that isn't primed. The paint will just leave the brush, pool up and then slide off.

3 - don't even use it on cool days, you'll only ruin your models

All in all, I think tamiya primer is unreliable at the best of times, If you need primer, I'll give you mine..just don't use tamiya. That stuff gives me nightmares.

p.s for best priming results..nothing beats an airbrush .period. Failing that GWs chaos black and skull white are great for priming and doesn't bollock your miniatures like tamiya primer does

p.p.s please...don't use tamiya primer.

[Seb]

Ok, thanks man, note taken.

But I have no plans on buying an airbrush just to get my models primed, although I am sure that it looks very nice, I have just spent too much money on different tools for the hobby recently like dremel tools etc etc.

I tried to brush prime my models with Chaos Black but the paint kept runnin off all the edges, what was I doing wrong?

So I guess I will go with the GW line sprays then, fortunately they sell Skull White Spray at yellow submarine.

[jus]

@seb:

I find black primer alot easier to work with. But your miniatures will look darker and the colors won't stand out as much. Foundation paints can be used to counter this but required more time and effort to layer it down. Because its black underneath, you can get away with making mistakes. White primer on the other hand really make those colors pop out. Good for painting fire effect or lava bases, but alot harder to work with since mistakes are alot more unforgiving on top of white.

The very first model I ever painted was primed with a white undercoat, and it was a disaster. I would say go with a black undercoat and layer on with some DENEB STONE foundation paint (one of my favorite colors) which will work as the perfect base for your bleached bone. Thats what I would do at least, but I guess you can wait to see what the others have to say first heh.

As for varnish, I have never used it, but I would assume that gloss vanish makes your models look shinier and matt leaves them as is. personally, I'm not a big fan of shiny.

GW paints work just fine with water out of a tap. I have a bottle of mixing medium and honestly can't tell the difference, other than the mixing medium makes the paint a little shiny ... and well, I'm not a big fan of shiny, unless its metallic.

[jus]

I tried to brush prime my models with Chaos Black but the paint kept runnin off all the edges, what was I doing wrong?

Nothing , that is the way acrylic paint reacts to an unprimed surface. Apart from basing a model with a certain color primer is what makes the paint stick to the model. Brush priming with anything that isn't a primer usually isn't advisable, however if you really want to, you'd have to go with thick coats and then lose a lot of detail on the model.

[Primarch]

I prime everything with Tamiya Matt Black Spray Paint. I dont use primer.

Very low temperatures or very high humidity can mess with it, but I have primed several models this week and they have all come out fine.

[Seb]

Ok,thanks guys

I'll get some tamiya spray and if I don't like it I will get some GW spray.

[Admiral-Badruck]

there is also Mr. hobby primer.. for metals.. it have yet you use it but right now it is a bit too cold to be priming models... the stuff will not dry well unless it is at least 10-C outside. for the moment I would not do any priming... but I am sure some one else disagrees with me... hehehe

[me_in_japan]

Ive never had a problem with Tamiya spray. it sounds like Justin's problem is that he is trying to spray paint all over the model. Thats not how undercoat is supposed to work. All this stuff about black or white undercoat is irrelevant, as the first thing you should do once your model has been undercoat it is paint it in a base coat. The undercoat shouldnt show through at all. (although it is true that a black undercoat results in a slightly dimmer finish, which can be good for muted colours like dark angels, or earthy models e.g. cryx. White is good for anything thats going to be yellow, red, or blue. Bright stuff, basically)

but i digress.

when you undercoat (on hot, cold, humid or dry days) do not try to cover the model. You cant. It is in the nature of spray undercoat to go on far too thickly. If you are trying to cover the entire model in paint than you are doomed to failure - most likely from over spraying your piece and getting that paint-repellent finish justin mentioned.

A spray on undercoat (whether with paint or primer) should show the metal/plastic underneath. This is particularly true in deep areas where its hard to get the spray to reach. Those bits will end up basically unprimed. There is nothing you can do about this (altho Victoria Lamb recommends generously spraying paint into the cap of the spray can, then painting with the resulting puddle using a brush. Ive never tried this, but VL knows what she's talking about.)

Ive said this many times, but when you spray, it should be pfft!pfft!pfft!pfft!. If you do this, and turn the model around every time you pfft!, then you should end up with a fairly evenly coated mini. You should definitely NOT be able to paint yellow on over a white undercoat - you need to paint a clean layer of white on by brush after you undercoat, then move on to yellow.

When I get back to Japan I'll do a quick photo tutorial of how this is supposed to look. For now, remember that an undercoat is not a colour - its a grainy layer that you apply very lightly for the paint to grip. Nothing more.

[jus]

...it sounds like Justin's problem is that he is trying to spray paint all over the model. Thats not how undercoat is supposed to work.

hmm I am afraid that is not that is not Justin's problem, because he is not trying to spray paint all over the model and knows that that is not how undercoats are supposed to work. You can shake your can all day long and then apply short controlled bursts oh so very carefully, such that it looks like its dusted with heroin rather than completely covered with it, but tamiya PRIMER (I hope we are on the same page here, we are talking about the tamiya's range of primer that only comes in black white and grey, that says tamiya primer, not tamiya color mini air spray, or anything else) is not that great because it still tends to repels paint, (on cold days) albeit to some people and not others. ..

but don't just take it from me, lets have a look at what other people have said about tamiya's primers shall we?

qrab from the warhammer forum says this:

...gave Tamiya's white* surface primer a shot since I figured the company had been around long enough to figure this out....... There is, however, something weird about it. When I went to paint the models, the paint would literally "bead" up as if the primer was repelling the paint. Metallics even more so than others. This would happen whenever I tried to apply thinned paint, but not so much with uncut paint. Since I primarily use Vallejo paints, this presents a problem.

Arma from coolmini or not forum says :

....Japanese painters use Tamiya, ....since it can be very smooth and offer very little tooth for paint.

All terrain mokey says :

...supah smooth at times, so if you basecoat with very thin layers 5-10% of the time you might run into problems with the paint pooling and not sticking as well as you might like

gotarheelz14 from ARC forum says:

Hey guys, so I primed my spitfire yesterday with the Tamiya Fine Surface Primer .... Oddly, I am noticing that the paint is not really sticking all that well to the primer.

solutions to this is to spray on a layer of dull coat after priming and that should allow paint to stick to it again, but why bother when GW's superior primers get the job done in any weather.

[Seb]

I prime everything with Tamiya Matt Black Spray Paint. I dont use primer.

Okay, let's see if I got this right,

There is Tamiya Primer,
And there is Tamiya spray paint.

All the people here who say positive things about tamiya are using the spray paint, not the primer.
Jus has been using the Primer which he did not find to be very good.
Is there anyone using the tamiya spray primer (not the spray paint) and like it?

I did not even know that there is one special spray for priming in the tamiya line.

Tamiya spray paint - good for priming
Tamiya spray primer - bad for priming

Is this right?