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OK, it's not really watching paint dry, it's watching gesso dry after being used to prime a figure.

More for your entertainment than anything else, I've posted an addendum to my gesso article on my website that shows gesso drying. Quite remarkable how much it shrinks as it dries...

http://www.weetoysoldiers.com/wp/?p=310

Hey, tough crowd!

Cool I thought you had way too much primer on there at first!

great info on there. i'd never heard of trying gesso as a primer, but it's looking like a nice option now. thanks!

What's the advantage to Gesso over regular spray or brush primer? It seems like you are spending more effort to get the same effect as a spray primer. What does Gesso do other than make you wait longer to start painting your model?

Yea, that's what I'm wondering, too. I'm still using the white citadel spray primer and I've had no issues at all with it at all. Why go with something that appears to take so much extra work to achieve basically the same end result?

vs. spray can primers--two key reasons for me:

1. Gesso is non-toxic and water-washup. The solvent- and lacquer-based primers have nasty, oftentimes carcinogenic, toxic chemicals that I’d rather do without. Read the warning label on the spray can primers and see if that's something you want to use indoors or around your family and pets. When I was younger and felt like I was going to be young forever, :-) those were minor concerns, but in actuality, no matter what your age, it's a big deal.

2. Most of my hobby work is done late at night, which effectively precludes using spray cans.

There are other reasons, too. A brush-on primer is inherently easier to control than a spray can. It's easier to touch-up the missed spots. Using white and clear gesso, you can take care of priming and basecoating in a single go by tinting those with paint of your choice (black gesso, of course, works great as black basecoat).

I've used other brush-on primers (Vallejo, Citadel, Testors), and gesso seems to have far better "tooth" for the paint to adhere to.

I'd have to say that spray painting indoors is a pretty stupid thing to do.

The disadvantage to brushing on primer of any kind (in my opinion) is that you spend more time putting your brush all over the model, it really feels like you've wasted a whole brush coat of effort before you even put the first base color down.

Spray painting is much faster, and as long as you are careful and aware of how close/far away from to the miniature you are, you shouldn't have any problems obscuring details.

Edit:

Even dry, it also looks very thick.  I don't know if thats a result of the pictures/lighting, but it looks very like a very thick coverage.

My chief question is this: Does Gesso hang onto metal & plastic figs as well as quality spray primers? I find nothing more annoying than having hand primed (with Citadel "smelly primer" or similar) and on the final blended highlight have a big peice flake off after I accidentally touched it.

@whitedragon

No question about it, putting on that initial layer of primer by brush is the biggest drawback (for me, at least) to gesso. It IS time consuming--especially if you have a bunch of figures to paint--but for my needs and schedule, it works out OK. Spray priming is pretty much not a possibilty for me most of the times, and so I'm just happy that there is a viable alternative, even if it's more time consuming.  The fact that I'm a supremely slow painter may make gesso more palatable for my painting habits, too.

As for what you mentioned about the dried figure looking thick--not sure what to say. It looks fine to me in person, and maybe because I know in my head how it looks in person, I don't see the photo of dried figure being "too thick". The frontal photography with the camera's built-in flash probably didn't help--it tends to flatten everything.

@nyarlathotep667,

Gesso-primed figure seems to be durable enough for me. I'm sorry for such a subjective answer, but there really isn't an objective, absolute way to measure how durable a coat of primer is. What I've observed is that the more you thin gesso, the less durable the coat becomes. I personally wouldn't thin it more than 1:4 ratio of water/thinner to gesso.

My full article on gesso (you may have seen it already, there was a link for it on the article link posted above) has more photos and information about gesso priming, which you may find useful:

www.weetoysoldiers.com/wp/

I'm not pushing gesso as the be-all, do-all primer replacement for spray can primers. But it is a pretty useful thing to keep in one's bag of hobby supplies, for those times and days when spray can primers are absolutely out of the question (raining, high humidity, etc.).

Fantastic answer! Seriously, that's pretty bang on to what I wanted to know. I have plenty of white gesso laying around and think I even have a can of leftover black somewhere, so I'll have to give it a whirl. Tamiya's grey spray primer and Krylon have been very, very good to me (unlike GW primer... yech!) and normally I wouldn't be looking for anything to rock the boat but I have a bunch of old figures that I've updated modeling wise and are in need of a brush on option (so as not to destroy existing paint elsewhere). Looks like I might have found it. Thanks for the info!