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Alright, here is my first try at using gesso. For my mixture, I used 3 parts white gesso and 1 part apple barrel black. For my brush, I used a wide flat nylon brush. The few things I noticed are the brush strokes are evident especially on the shoulder pads, but I did place a heavy coat. Also, my mixture had alot of air bubbles which you can see in the backpack photo. If there are any tips or thing that I did wrong, please let me know. I am afraid to continue with my other figures as I do not want the brush strokes to show thru. Also, Gesso was place about an hour and still drying in photo.

it looks to me like you may have used too much paint there..

Gesso still drying. Everyone says wait 24 hours but the parts that are dry already like the shoulder pads show evidence of brush strokes.

good, point, I would suppose you know more about it than I do
I've never heard of gesso before but I just wanted to show my concern over how I thought it looked like a lot of paint

It looks like you dipped the model in a can of paint.

CappyBen wrote:It looks like you dipped the model in a can of paint.

He did. Gesso is a type of paint. Maybe he's trying out a new primer?

Using gesso as an alternative to primer has had prior posts here in P&M. I haven't had the chance to use it, but my understanding is that for miniatures, it is best to dilute it slightly so as not to obscure detail.

I can't see the pic, but brushstrokes are a no-no. You might want to remove it and try again with a diluted mixture. Also, bubbles are terribly annoying and occassionally happen to me when I'm diluting paint too much. No clue how to prevent them from developing. Any help on that front would be appreciated!

Here is the thing. Even if it dries and shrinks to a smooth coating, that is WAY more primer than you really need. All you really need is a dusting, not a full on coat. All you are looking for in a primer is to have some tooth for your paint to affix to and not mess with details.

I was just playing with this very thing yesterday, except in my airbrush. I am using Golden Gesso with Golden Airbrush medium and according to their web site you mix it 1:1 to shoot out of an airbrush. It worked AWESOME. I went to bed giddy for the first time in weeks. The trick was I needed to up the pressure to about 45 PSI, my previous attempts were around 25 PSI, and I had a really nice totally controlled and consistent dusting of primer on my minis and bases. In my previous attempts it had come out in spatters, but ultimately came together, with the right PSI now i am set. This time it was exactly what I was looking for. non-toxic good quality primer I have utter control over how and where it goes. The rattle cans of primer make me physically ill from the fumes.

The really funny thing. I had just gotten a 200ml bottle of the vallejo grey primer to try in my airbrush and compare. When I loaded it in the airbrush just like Vallejo says to do with no dilution, my airbrush clogged immediately. I had to disassemble and clean it entirely. it is WAY too thick straight out the bottle. I am going to thin it with some of the golden airbrush medium and see if it gets better simply because I own it, but at this point I really love the Golden Gesso/AB Medium Combo.

So if you have an airbrush and can get some Golden Gesso and AB Medium at your local craft store or online, I highly recommend trying it.

here is an example of what I did. Notice you can still see a little of the grey plastic, so the mini looks speckled. Also, yes, I know the mold lines and crap show. These are some cheap AOBR minis I got off ebay for experiments just like this one and the anticipation to start experimenting was to much, so I have not bothered to clean them up.

Looks like a good even coat of white. Nice job.

I'm no master painter, but I prime pretty much exclusively with gesso. Some tips:

1. Don't mix it with paint. Paint and gesso have really different properties--gesso loses much, much more volume when it dries, which is why it can form a nice tight coat showing lots of detail even when you kind of slop it on.
2. I haven't used that brand of white gesso, but in general I've found that white gesso doesn't shrink up as much or leave such a nice surface as black gesso. (Not to say it won't work, of course!)
3. While you can put a much, much thicker coat of gesso on than you could with paint, a thin coat is better. What I do is slap on a big glop, and then spread that around with the brush, really shoving the brush in there when I'm doing detailed bits like the face to make sure it's a thinnish coat. It'll still look thicker when it's wet than you would ever want to do with paint, but the result will be a lot nicer than you would get with a thick gloppy coat.
4. Thinning it doesn't work well if you're brushing it on. (An airbrush is obviously a different situation!) It just ends up making it patchy and hard to get a good coat. "Thin" it on the mini itself by the physical action of brushing the excess away.
5. Wait 24 hours (honestly, I usually wait a lot less time, but 24 hours works better), and then see if you missed any spots or if any gaps formed. (If you thin it, gaps are somewhat more likely.) Cover then up with just a little thin coat of gesso, like you would do with paint.
6. If you realize you've put too much on and it's only a few hours old, you can often get most of it off with warm water and scrubbing. If not, green stuff works really well. (On metal it takes literally about half an hour--on plastic it's usually a day or so, with toothbrushing every so often.)

Yup, I second wot Motortree says.

A couple of thin coats are always better than than one overthick splodge-coat.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Priming_With_Acrylic_Gesso

Thanks for that article but there was nothing about the brushes used. Do I use a base coating brush or can any old use brush be used to jam the gesso into the crevices?