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How do you, or can you, prime a model without spray paint?

With a brush and some paint.

i use Vallejo Air Grey Primer...
it brushes on just fine, and i don't have to worry about spray disasters in the humidity...

cheers
jah

Gesso is also brushable, and is supposed to rock. I have not tried it yet as OSH brand white primer works great for 1\8 the price of GW primers.

 Niiai wrote:
With a brush and some paint.

no no no.

Paint is not primer. Primer is primer. If Primer were an optional step, no one would use it.

Secondly, I airbrush Vallejo Polyurethane Primer on my models as it is silky smooth and awesome, and also comes in a decent selection of colors. You can also brush that stuff on by hand.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 jah-joshua wrote:
i use Vallejo Air Grey Primer...
it brushes on just fine, and i don't have to worry about spray disasters in the humidity...

cheers
jah

Also, that stuff isn't primer. It is just paint that is named that way as a military color. There is an official Vallejo statement to that effect somewhere. Switch to Panzer Grey PU surface primer.

interesting, Aerethan...
the VAGP i've been using definitely behaves like a primer, grabbing the surface of the minis (metal, plastic, and resin) instead of streaking like paint would on an unprimed surface...
it also dries with a shell-like finish...
works well for me, and has done for a couple years...

i don't trust sprays in the Tropics...
brush-on has never let me down with primer...
brush-on varnish is a little touch and go here during the rainy season, though (damn frosting varnish)...

i'll definitely be picking up a bottle of the PU primer you recommend when i need a new bottle...
looks like good stuff...

cheers
jah

You can just paint a thick undercoat on the mini with a brush.

 Color Sgt. Kell wrote:
You can just paint a thick undercoat on the mini with a brush.

No. Again, paint is not primer. Brushing on Chaos Black or whatever the hell GW calls it these days does not prime the model. People need to really lay off the misinformation.

If you don't want to prime with aerosol cans, there are plenty of options. GW has a brush on, there's Gesso, Vallejo's Polyurethane Surface Primers etc.

Airbrushing will give the best finish as it will be a very thin coat(which is all you need) and there is little to no risk of a bad spray due to weather unless you are trying to spray in the amazon.

i recommend vallejo acrylic surface primer!
its a great product that kind of shrinks onto your model.
its nice and thin and applies really easy

 Aerethan wrote:

 Color Sgt. Kell wrote:
You can just paint a thick undercoat on the mini with a brush.

No. Again, paint is not primer. Brushing on Chaos Black or whatever the hell GW calls it these days does not prime the model. People need to really lay off the misinformation.

While technically incorrect, it is functionally correct.

The purpose of primer is to seal/protect the model and to provide a solid base which allows paint to adhere to it correctly.

The seal/protect portion is to prevent corrosion/rot on lead and wood structures, and to protect plastics from hot paints like lacquers which can melt the model. With lead free metals and water based acrylics that is less important now than it has been in the past.

The base portion of the equation is what we tend to be interested in. If you are using an enamel spray primer on plastic, it will actually bond to the plastic (this is why you have a very hard time removing all the primer from plastics when you strip them). If you are using some of the newer environmentally friendly paints though, they don't tend to have enough of the good stuff to actually bond chemically to the plastic surface. On metals, there is the addition of etchants to the mix which are minor corrosive chemicals which roughen the surface of the metal and allow the primer to adhere better to the surface. Again, a large portion of the paints which are being sold as primers lack those as well though (the last MSDS I saw for Army Painter had no etchants listed).

Instead, the majority of environmentally friendly primers, hobby primers and brush on primers work by forming a coating that surrounds them entirely - sort of like a body stocking for miniatures. While not ideal, as long as the envelope is complete and not damaged it will stay in place well enough. If you would like to test this theory - try out a selection of primers on some flat plastic or metal. Cover a quarter sized area and then let it dry. After that - go ahead and bend it to see what sticks. About half of the "primers" will pop right off. The best ones being the various rattle can primers - especially those sold for automotive purposes.

So - next is adhering paint to "primer". For this, the general rule of thumb is the concept of tooth. Pretty much any flat paint is capable of providing sufficient tooth for paint to stick to it. Many are barely distinguishable from the surface provided for by primers. This gives you something for acrylic paints to stick to as opposed to smooth and impermeable plastics or metals.

So, yes - while using just any paint isn't the same as a proper primer...most primers are in fact just any paint. However, they still provide the needed surface texture. As long as you cover the miniature completely it will stay in place without any chemical bond or surface etchants.

I'll concede to technicalities.

If it doesn't specifically say "primer" then it isn't. Yes every primer(that I'm aware of, especially for models) has pigment in them qualifying them as paint.

GW has 3 primers: black spray, white spray and black brush on. Anything from GW that isn't one of those will not properly prime the model and you run the risk of massive chipping and a generally hard time getting good results.

Think Tamiya or Gunze make a clear primer. Forget which one - but I recall seeing a can of it years ago...

Primer also has one other important function, to provide a solid color base for building your colors on. All paint is translucent to one degree or another and the color that you use for your primer will affect the shade and tone of EVERY color you add on top of it. If you start with white, then your colors will be “brighter” and pop more. If you use a black primer, then your colors will be “moodier” and muted.

Not really about specifically about brush on primer, but something to consider.

Ohhhh...I thought the first layer was just to get a "grip" for other paints on the moddel and aply colour. (Bright for good colours and black for rubbush-I-cannot-tell-your-models-apart-because
-they-all-are-done-in-shades-of-black.)

I have 3 painted armies with a 4th coming along and none of them are primed. Is this a problem? Should I just make shure I seal them?

 Aerethan wrote:
I'll concede to technicalities.

If it doesn't specifically say "primer" then it isn't. Yes every primer(that I'm aware of, especially for models) has pigment in them qualifying them as paint.

GW has 3 primers: black spray, white spray and black brush on. Anything from GW that isn't one of those will not properly prime the model and you run the risk of massive chipping and a generally hard time getting good results.

only one of those 3 products is called primer...
the sprays are called spray paints, thus the names Chaos Black and Skull White...
a Primer, as in their Imperial Primer, is also a reference to a book, as in The Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer, so who knows if Imperial Primer is really a primer...
GW, too, has stated that the cans have always been spray paint, and it rubs off like crazy

P3 spray cans, on the other hand, are actually labeled White Primer and Black Primer...
they are said to be the same formula that everyone loves from Krylon, for twice the price...
personally i love the P3 stuff, but i can't get aerosol shipped here, so brush-on it is...

i'm happy to hear good things about the Vallejo PU Black, since all my minis start from black anyway...
i don't know why people think that a black base leads to dark or moody paintjobs...
i have found that my colors look stronger over a black basecoat, and all my finished pieces are bright and colorful...

of course, i paint with layers, so there is are many coats of paint over that primer...
white is great if i'm working with glazes and juicing for a more subtle paintjob...
i'm experimenting with grey right now, to save the time of painting black over my grey not-primer...
the grey seems to take a nice solid opaque basecoat easier than white, and the colors look fairly similair to starting over black...

cheers
jah

Thanks for the responses. I tried the GW "Imperial Primer" which is a black thin layer primer, but it never really "bonded" well enough for me. It ended up just running off the model much like an ink.
I'll probably have to switch to a the Vallejo stuff.

Edit: never mind

Aerethan! Good guy. Somebody that knows primer from paint, thankfully.

During the summer, I typically grab a can of Krylon indoor/outdoor primer. But during winter...

I've tried Gesso (white) but wasn't a fan. It was super chalky and chipped off super easily. But I've heard much better things about black gesso. Haven't tested myself, but Google will have those answers for you.

I WANT to get some Vallejo airbrush primer, I just haven't gotten my hands on it (bills...). Otherwise, my current alternative is this little bottle of acrylic multipurpose brush-on sealer I found in the craft paint aisle at the local Michaels arts/crafts shop. I thinned it down a tad, added a drop or 2 from an ink (to tell where I've been; comes clear), and brush that on. Seems to work quite well, and haven't had any issues yet.

It's only a cheap alternative until I get my hands on the appropriate airbush goodies I want, but worth sharing