What color primer to use?
What color primer to use?
So I'm about to begin painting for the first time, but I'm not sure what colors to buy. I play Star Wars Legion so I'll be painting a bunch of stormtroopers, death troopers, and other very monocolor minis. Should I use black and white primers for them? Or do neutral grey and paint the colors?
Bonus points if anyone can tell me if wildspire minis are good for a first time project.
what kind of paint do you use?
regular paints, you can really use anything
transparent paints like vallejo's speedpaint or games workshop contrast mean you have to use white, beige, or very light grey
Planning on using Army Painter's speedpaint 2.0.
I just read that they recommend their white or light grey primers.
To add to this, yeah, since contrast or speedpaints are very translucent, they don’t work on darker primers. White can be a tricky primer in general, since no matter what company you go with, it can spatter and speckle. Citadel’s “Wraithbone” is a really good rattle can since it’s not quite white and not apt to speckle, but is still light enough to let speedpaints show through.
AP’s primers are good, but their white (like all white primers) can be hit or miss. I like Vallejo’s, but whatever you have accessible!
AP grey is also good, but it’s tough for me to see where I’ve primed since it’s so close in colour to the actual mini.
Hey, if you didn't already paint all your minis I found great video with examples how you can use both speedpaints and various types of primed bases with zenithal trick for fast gradients: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gT2JV3Ks41g
And here you have practical example how speedpaint works differently on different base colour: https://youtu.be/WjfHiwczl84?t=182
For the most part I airbrush Vallejo black primer.
If your using speed paints white all the way. You can use any matte white spray paint. Recommend doing a few test runs to get the hang of priming
You think straight white is a better choice than light grey?
Yep. I usually use a Rust-Oleum matte white rattle can when I'm planning on speed paints.
Light gray would work as well if you were planning to highlight with a white dry brush ala slap chop.
I really recommend you experiment and mess around. Paint can always be stripped, and honestly you can reprime over a paint job a few times before you start to lose detail.
I personally paint mostly 3D printed minis for DnD and the occasional statue so YMMV
I typically use black primer with a sprits of grey from above to kinda act like an initial highlight layer.
Or just black depending on the model.
A big part of the primer IMO is that it gives a base coat and shadows for hard to reach places.
Happy painting!
