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I recently came across an article on DakkaDakka about priming with acrylic gesso, which piqued my interest as I've been looking for a decent alternative to sprays.

For the unititiated, gesso is an acrylic goop generally used for priming canvases for painting.

Determined to give it a go, I swung by the local discount store this morning and picked up a bottle of black gesso.



Cost AU$12.99 (could have got the same one cheaper online, but shipping is a killer) and should cover an awful lot of minis...


So, I needed a test subject.

Rummaging through the Heroquest discards pile, I dug out a goblin missing his weapon. Since I'm starting on the goblins next in my ongoing Heroquest project, this guy seemed like the perfect choice.




So, first step, gob on a generous dollop of gesso, trying to ensure that he's fully covered.

Winds up looking like a complete catastrophe:




But after half an hour or so, you can see the gesso starting to contract, and the detail showing back through:




More when he's finished drying...

Looking forward to this, I saw that same article and have been very eager to try it out myself.

Didn't the article say something about cutting it with water?

The gesso sets to a nice, matte finish, with very little detail filling. Looks perfect for painting.



At this point, I tried rubbing some of the gesso off, without much success. Just polished it up a bit, without actually removing the coating. A fingernail will shift it, but I would say it's easily as robust a coating as most sprays that I've used, and will certainly give a more durable result than just brush undercoating with regular acrylic paint.

Next up: painting.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

Canonness Rory wrote:Didn't the article say something about cutting it with water?

It did, although it also mentions that it's not actually necessary. Seems to give better results without the water.

Heroquest is so sexy.

I've been experimenting with Liquitex gesso lately, with good results so far. I've been wanting to stop using spray primer for a while since the high it gives me is telling me that it's killing a serious amount of brain cells.

Anyway, I've noticed that it's not only a very smooth finish, it seems to protect and not flake off as much for me either. I have been watering it down, but this tells me I should try it without. I don't know how it compares to your brand but it's definitely working for me better than the last GW spray primer I used.

There's also a Bob Ross brand gesso, and that makes me happy.

How well does Gesso stick to metal models? I'm also interested in switching but am wary of it's strength - I have a sisters army I'm currently painting which, obviously is all-metal.

I've only tried it on metal models so far and it's working well. It's stuck better and been harder than any brush-on primer I've used. I had a similar experience to the pictures above where it basically shrinks to the model, never filling in detail. The only reason I might go back to spray primer now is laziness, since it's quite tedious to brush on undercoats for an entire army.

Try it out on a test model first if you're nervous about it.

Interesting experiment in gesso. You've even got me interested now, and I think I have an Eckersley's nearby me that stocks that exact same Monte Marte gesso you're using in the OP.

My only concern is a) even black gesso doesnt appear to dry as a flat black undercoat like with a black spray primer. I suppose that could be sorted out with black wash or something though, but most of my armies are predominantly black, and spraying them black helps speed up things. And b) doing vehicles with gesso. I cant imagine having to glob that stuff on something as large as a tank, when once again spray-primer seems to be the easiest thing to do.

I use gesso straight.
I use it over the spray paint because it dries with better quality surface. Too often the spray paint gives a coarse finish, like sand paper. The gesso, it takes longer to dry, but it dries with a smooth finish.
It depends on the army and the painter; if you have a predominantly black colour scheme for your troops, it makes sense to go with the spray paint because it's quicker; but I've known IG players (a horde army) use white gesso with another cheap acrylic paint mixed into it (like dark green) to get a green undercoat. They paint slow though, so speed is not an issue.
Gesso is good for special characters as well if you're not inclined to using it for the whole army.

I've never had a problem with GW's white primer myself so I'm not sure what problems everyone else is having. Also, I use the primer as a means of keeping the paint stuck to the figure, not as an undercoat. This means I use much less than most people and detail is never an issue.

Never use primer on flat surfaces...like my monolith. It comes out really funky and the paint job looked so bad I stripped it all with simple green and repainted it using black primer, looks much better now.

I've been trying white Gesso recently, with good results so far.