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Hi dakka,

I have recently bought and started using the Army Painter's black primer and I'm noticing that the primer tends to be rather thick and glossy. Is this something I should have expected? Also, would this impede any of the actual painting process? So far I have primed and painted a few Necron Warriors and it seems to be fine but Necron Warriors should never be the standard when judging painting. I'm hoping to start painting my Chaos Space Marines so should I grab another primer or stick with this one after a little more experimentation?

I use the bone one and white spray but practiced on budget models first. Gotta mist it on gently, cant use it like GW spray or it will clog and go thick. As a result i highly recomend you find the coloured primer and use that so you have less of a chance to clog up the detail. Makes painting my vehicles a breeze.

I have use the army painter primers as well, and can say, they do take a lot of care to not put on too thick.

They are clearly thicker than other brands I have tried.

I use very fast sweeping motions while using them, and it turns out ok.

A slightly thinner black spray primer is the 2x coat rustolemum primers from the home improvement stores.
Its a little thinner than the army painter ones.

The thinnest large can spray primer I have found is the "armory" brand - I really like it - its my go to black primer when not doing terrain (I use the rusoleum for that).

do a few searches on "spray primer" you will find dozens and dozens of other thoughts - others might have a lot of other good ideas...

davethepak wrote:
I have use the army painter primers as well, and can say, they do take a lot of care to not put on too thick.

They are clearly thicker than other brands I have tried.

I use very fast sweeping motions while using them, and it turns out ok.

A slightly thinner black spray primer is the 2x coat rustolemum primers from the home improvement stores.
Its a little thinner than the army painter ones.

The thinnest large can spray primer I have found is the "armory" brand - I really like it - its my go to black primer when not doing terrain (I use the rusoleum for that).

do a few searches on "spray primer" you will find dozens and dozens of other thoughts - others might have a lot of other good ideas...

I think I might resort back to Armory. That used to be what I used before trying out Army Painter.

Yeah, compared to armory, the army painter is a lot "thicker".

I only use the army painter when I really need a good colored primer (the coverage is great, and as a primer it has a LOT of "teeth" to it).

Unless I am doing a really nice quality mini (where I will use vallejo surface primer and my airbrush) my go to primer is Armory.

(favorite primer is quite subjective.....).

Best of luck!

I tried black army painter spray too and it came out quite thick even when I was using it very sparingly, and I didn't like the glossiness of it, either. Went back to using chaos black spray.

Might have to do with the black. I tried out the not-Dark Angels Green color for base-coating Orks, and it went on like a dream, other than I had to be very aware of how thick I was putting it on in one spray. Dried wonderfully matte.

FYI, I have tried the "Armory" white primer...it went on like wet cement: thick and chalky.

I refined the process slightly to use several VERY light coats. The coverage wasn't 100% and the texture was still a bit like chalk, but the details at least were still ok.

I can't stand army painter sprays. It's like spraying my models with coloured porridge!

I've used both the white and black army painter sprays and both worked fantastic. Never had a problem with them.

However, I think they may have recently changed the formula for the black. I brought a can just the other week and, like was mentioned, it went on glossy. The other cans I've used have never been glossy. This wasn't a problem though as it made no different to the over all paint job once it was done. YMMV of course.

Also no can of Army Painter spray i've used has ever been chalky. If it is then you need to check what the weather conditions are like. Cold and hot temperatures can effect the paint, as can moisture levels in the air. If it's coming out to thick then you are holding the can too close.

Army painter sells a Matt black and a standard glossy style, when you use army painter you do fast sweeps as they pack those cans tight with paint. I feel their extra cost is worth it for a quality primer and I only messed up once and deformed a squad of Guardsmen. You do not prime close to the model with army painter, I keep it back about a foot or so and do fast sweeps. One can of Matt Black covers a lot of model.