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Hey there,

I'm painting my SM army with the main color being Testor's Model Master Fluorescent Red (orange, really). Problem is, I've painted 5 coats of the stuff onto my grey-primered model and I can still see grey. Do I just keep painting (will it ever be thick enough?), or is there a better solution?

Would painting a basecoat with 1/2 (or so) white, then another one with less white, and another one with less, and finishing up with the main color on top work at all, or am I making this technique up?

Thanks!

Go back to the 80s and pop a few E's while listening to crap music.

Nope, that didn't improve flouro then either.

You should start with WHITE under any colour intended to be bright. Grey just dulls it down.

My preferred primer is super-cheap ($3) and the best I've found ("touch 'n tone primer"), but alas it only comes in gray and black.

So I suppose I'll do a coat of white after priming with my next model.


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I tried two quick tests:

1. Grey primer + white paint + normal orange ("international orange") + "fluorescent red" (orange) = 3 coats.

2. Grey primer + white paint + 2 coats of "fluorescent red" (orange) = 3 coats.

They're both pretty well coated, with hopefully only one more coat of the fluorescent needed over both, but we'll see. The 2nd one is brighter. If they both only need one more coat, I'll go with #2, and if #2 needs more coats, I'll go with #1.

In any case, it was probably a dumb idea to go with a fluorescent scheme for my first army, as this is hard. I've had my models for a month and have stripped the same 3 probably three times each (part of that was picking a scheme, part is figuring out coats, etc.). Blagh! I hope I can figure it out this time with at least one model before I have to strip the other two.

I've tried that Testors spray before (not on a mini). I didn't have any success with it either. I ended up using a straight orange instead. You could maybe try over a white or silver basecoat.

Thanks. I tried an extra layer of the fluorescent, like I said above, and nothing doing.

I think I may have to give this up, and go with a normal orange, unless anyone can give me any tips. Fluorescent colors JUST DON'T COVER. Arg! I'm going for kind of a bright safety orange look.

All flourescent paints are transparent to some degree. Painting over white is the only way to make them their brightest.
Now- if you play a game near a blacklight - your army will light up like theres bulbs inside.

I think I've figured it out: I paint a couple white coats over a grey primer, then 1 or 2 coats of normal orange, then a wash of fluorescent, and it's all covered, and it pops!

This is somewhat theory, as I painted white--2x orange--1x fluorescent, and it looks good, but I think it needs 1x more white basecoat to cover the grey.

Thanks everyone! This has been an interesting experiment, and I'll post again tomorrow evening after I've tried my theoretical formula above.

I would love to see some pictures of these- I've been curious about fluorescent paints for a while.

All I have is a digital camera and I can't seem to get pictures that are close up that show anything but an orange furball.


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I'll see what I can do, though. Thanks for the interest!

I had a brief experiment using Vallejo's fluorescent orange as a secondary color on some marines. I initially tried a gray primer like you, and similarly failed to get anything approaching a good coat after any reasonable amount of work. I had a LOT better luck basing it in red first, then putting 2-4 coats of the orange on top. Highlighted with a 50/50 fluorescent orange/golden yellow mix, then a very light pure golden yellow for extremes. I think it turned out okay, if not great.

While grey primer is ideal for most reds, as visually it will help achieve high density colour(reds absorb a lot of light), white will be much better on anything flurescent, due to the idea behind flurescent colour being its high luminance(whites and flurescents reflect a lot of light). Honestly I would abandon the grey primer and try to find a white. Krylon etc.

I should say that I was trying this when I was using armory (white) primer as well, and having similar coverage issues.