[GZG] Metal Primer

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nts to think on:

Armoury Grey is my favourite primer, followed by Armoury Black and
Armoury
White. Grey tends to not lighten up or darken down colours applied over.
The
Black darkens down, the white lightens up. Some use the Black as a base
to
make the shading easier later.

I have an airbrush, but as I reserve it for acrylics, I'm not keen to
run
oil based paints (and primers needing thinning with paint thinner)
through
it. Having something you can thin with a bit of water and with a water
cleanup is a good thing. The cleanup with an airbrush using oil-based
paints
is a bit more involved and stinky. (Matters to me since I'm in an
apartment).

I prefer dedicated metal primers because some of the minis are fairly
smooth
and polished when they arrive and this can make adhesion a challenge.
Nothing worse than painting on four layers of camouflage then dropping
the
darn thing and having a huge flake come off the smooth metal surface.
Primers tend to stick even better than conventional paint (hence the
name as
primer).

There is a valid issue about surface detail and paint layers. It depends
a
bit what you are painting. If it was 6mm tanks and figures, I might just
try
the 'basecoat camo priming' scheme suggested to remove a layer. On 25mm
stuff and even on the 15mm I've painted (and FT ships), I've found a
thin
and even application of the Armoury Grey doesn't kill too much,
especially
if my paints aren't too thick (and they don't have to be on a primed
model
if they aren't cheap paints with weak pigment).

Auto primer is generally a greyish or whitish shade, but I'm not sure
what
its particulate sizes are. I suspect auto airbrushes are not the same
needle
tip size as modelling airbrushes, so I'm not sure how good of a flow
you'd
get, or if it would jam or become a spatter fest. May depend on what
needle
sizes  you have available and how keen you are to change needle sizes,
plus
the effort of thinning per batch at a high ration and so on.

I imagine GW sells a primer spray bomb that is pretty decent. I in the
past
tried Testers, but I found the end result very smooth and glossy to let
the
next coat adhere well in thin layers (I think that this is a major
failing
in a primer actually). So I say Testers is not recommended.

Good luck with your efforts, Sr. Hudak. Now that I have some time off
(contract ended a week or so ago), I'm going to be doing a lot of
painting
and terrain construction myself for my events at ECC. Plaster pour
moulds
for 6mm buildings are next up. Hopefully they'll turn out well, since
the
moulds were drawn from a variety of packaging plastic and I think with
some
work I can produce some good sci-fi buildings.

TomB

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