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hello dakka,

I finally got a chance to try using gesso as a brush-on primer. I used liquitex white gesso. when I first started brushing it on, it seemed pretty thick, so I thinned it down a bit with water; probably about 3:1 gesso to water. I applied two coats to the bits I was priming and it's now been drying for about an hour. I can see brush strokes in the surface; it didn't go on very smoothly and even looks a bit chalky in some places. I know that gesso has a 24 hour drying period and is supposed to "shrink" a bit during that time. are the brush strokes just going to go away or am I going to have to consign these bits to a dip in superclean and re-prime them? should I be doing something different to apply the gesso?

cheers,

v

gesso is fine if you can work it smooth, but its so much easier to just use a spray can, or airbrush to lay down your primer coat. Your more than likely going to have to reapply the primer.

unfortunately, the whole point of using a brush-on primer for me is because I don't have a good place to use a spray primer. any tips on getting the gesso on smooth?

Other than massively thinning it and using it very sparingly, not really. I only used gesso when I was priming a canvas.

hrm, doing a bit more googling suggests that white & black gesso do not behave the same. naturally, all the words of praise about using gesso as a primer are for the black version (which goes on smooth and shrinks when it dries, apparently). anyone have any luck with the white gesso?

I've noticed the same brush strokes and came to the same conclusion as you about the different colors.

I'm not sure the brush strokes matter, however. I'm going to mess with mine some more.

Useful article:

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

yeah, that's a fair point. I haven't tried painting my base color over it so it might be a non-issue. I'll give that a try and see how it comes out. I'm also going to try mixing a bit of black gesso into the white to see if I can get some of that 'black magic' going. my base color is green, so I'm hoping it will still show up ok on a gray primer vs. my usual white. we shall see...


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@kilkrazy: I've read it it's what inspired me to try using gesso in the first place. unfortunately, my results didn't mesh with his but that may be due to my lack of adding in craft paint since I wanted a white surface.

I've used it with good results on 1/32 scale soft plastic figures.

I had white gesso, added a bit of black paint and I may have watered it as well. Results were very good.

Of course, the size of the model compared to 28mm means that the detail is much harder to conceal.

Id always use Vallejo's polyurethane primers over gesso, they brush on easily and smoothly right out of the bottle and you have multiple colours.

I conducted an experiment not too long ago to see if I could tell a difference between GW black spray-on primer and some black gesso from amazon. I sprayed the middle part of the hull and one side (tracks, side hull plate, door, sposon bits) with spray primer, and the other side with thinned black gesso.

At the primed stage, the gesso does look chalky and a little rough; you can often see a suggestion of brush marks. To be honest I thought I had ruined the entire kit. However, I found that as I went on, both the texture and the apparent brushmarks got swallowed up by subsequent layers of paint. After basecoating and detailing both sides, I can say in all honesty I can't remember which side is which; they look pretty equivalent.

So, my conclusion: yes, gesso looks a little rough at the primed stage, and you have to be careful to keep it nice and thin so it doesn't swallow up details. However, for beginning (myself included) to intermediate level painters, I really think that these faults can, should be, and easily are painted over. Plus it's not nearly as much of a pain in the butt as spraying.

taking a look at my results after the white gesso had a night to dry (about 16 hours of drying time), I've lost some detail and it's a bit chunky/chalky in places (fingers, etc). so, those bits are taking a swim in superclean right now.

I also mixed up a batch of roughly 4:2:1 white gesso/black gesso/water and primed a torso and a head. it brushed on smoothly and evenly; kinda like using a GW foundation paint. after about 12 hours of drying, the results look promising. details look fine and no notable brush strokes. it's hard to tell if it shrunk or if I missed spots, though, because the color is almost the same as that of the plastic. I still need to see how well the gray takes my green base color before I decide to keep using it, so I'll base coat the head later today and see what's what.

I've used white gesso. It is a bit chunky, and chalky (as varl said). White gesso shrank to fit the model as well, but (as compared to online images) it didn't look nearly as good as black gesso (I've never used black, so take this opinion cautiously).

Try thinning. As for adding a color, if you want the same quality as black gesso: adding black paint won't do you any good. But, adding paint to help with an undercoat for your paint scheme, that is a good idea.

just a quick follow-up: the mix of black and white gesso seems to be a winner. details remain sharp, no notable brush strokes and my green base coat goes on over it just fine. my only real complaint is that the color is nearly the same as the bare plastic, so it's hard to tell if I missed spots. I think I might try adding a drop of my green base color to the mix next time to see if I can change up the color a bit.