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Hi all,

Ive just base coated a tac squad with some army painter spray primer and I ended up with a powdery finish in places.
Is there a special technique that I should be using to avoid this?

Cheers

Heat the can up First. Put the can in Hot water For 10 miniuts or so. You will fined it sprays a lot smoother.

Having the can warmed and the contents thoroughly mixed is good practice for any spray. Chalky finishes, specifically, are frequently caused by the paint starting to set and "clump" while atomized. You need to get the spray onto the model while it's still liquid and, therefore, self-leveling. Move closer to the model, moving quickly to avoid runs and pools from the more concentrated cone of spray. It works for spray paint, more generally, and I've seen the same advice echoed by Army Painter users. As always, do a test spray on some scrap if you're worried about potentially mucking up models.

Exactly what oadie has said
This is a spray industry paint defect known as 'dry spray' or 'overspray', overspray happens if you spray two jobs too close together and the excess mist from one job lands on the other also when you don't mask things up etc.

To fix it on a car you can sand it out, bit trickier on a detailed 28mm figure :( The answer is to strip it and get what you can off,then spray again.

Army painter sprays are fairly decent primers so I doubt your going to get it all off.

Have a practice on some sprues, specifically the parts with writing on so you can judge if you sprayed to wet and caked deatails or too dry getting the chalky rough texture. This way you can gauge a good distance for spraying your particular can in your particular environment. Humidity and temperature makes much of a difference to ideal ranges.

Heating the can up is always good practise too, but remember its pressurised... dont get too carried away with heating it as it explodes at some point! Just some pretty warm water from the hot tap will do the trick I find.

This can also be caused by excessive humidity. I live in a region where it gets humid enough that we can just kick up our feet and swim away some days, so I've seen lots of crazy things happen with spray paints.

If you can spray in an interior room, that helps. Otherwise, spraying in the early morning or late evening can help. Waiting until JUST after (or better yet, during!) a rain can really help. It isn't just the humidity, of course, it's the heat and the humidity together than can make paint go wonky.

If you don't live in a humid area, or you already spray indoors, then the above advice is good advice.

Thanks for all the advice, I will try warming the can up and do a test patch on the weekend.

Cheers