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Will the color of the primer matter on the finished model? Obviously Black and White will change the brightness of the final product, but would, say, brown be any different than black? I ask because I have a can of brown primer and some Necropolis Knights that need priming and cannot get my hands on some black primer for the time being. Is it safe to go ahead and primer brown? I'm aiming for at least tabletop quality, and since its going to mostly painted in varying shades of gold, would brown actually be a better option, considering Balthazzar Gold (The color I'll be using for most of the model) is a very brown-tinted metal?

Yes it matters because it could be used as a base coat. Of course, if you put enough layers of paint you can cover the primer entirely... but also cover up the details of the model.

Brown would be okay if, say, you're aiming for a rusty metal color or gold. I imagine you have to cover it with black paint first before you paint silver metallics on it, though. So my answer would be yeah, it's possible but it'll add another step and not entirely optimal.

Grey is another good standard colour. Doesn't give a final result as dark as using a black primer or as bright as using a white primer.

As heartserenade says, coloured primers are good for base coats as well, if the model is primarily one colour. I prime my Tyranids red, because I paint them as Behemoth. Prime red, touch up missed spots with some more red brushed on, and they're ready for their wash. If you're painting a lot of skeletons, you'd probably want to use a bone coloured primer.

Brown primer can work well, definitely give you a different look which I prefer for some things. Some colours like red, brown and some greens can look better over brown (depending on what you're going for).

A lot of people preshade vehicles with black... most of the time I prefer dark brown (burnt umber) as a preshade colour as black looks odd to me.

Because I airbrush my primer, I usually just airbrush it grey and then hit it with whatever colour I want. It's a lot easier.

 heartserenade wrote:
Of course, if you put enough layers of paint you can cover the primer entirely... but also cover up the details of the model.

If you're careful you can do enough thin layers to cover almost any primer coat without noticeably covering any details, especially if you have an airbrush.

for what you are painting, brown primer sounds perfect...
i always start my golds over brown, and considering there is going to be a fair bit of bone in there too, i'd say you are going to be set with brown primer...
reds and yellows work good over brown, as well...

good luck...

cheers
jah

Yes it's important.

1. You can prime with a colour to remove the need for a basecoat step, ie. by priming a predominantly brown model with brown primer.
2. Black primer will provide a darker overall colour once done, white will provide a brighter overall colour.
3. It affects the colours on top of it. Yellow is harder and more time consuming to get looking good over a black basecoat.
4. Some colours go better over white or black. Metallics are much better over black, golds are better over black or brown, yellows (nice vibrant yellows rather than subdued ones) imo are much better over whites.
5. There's an argument for priming black to get better shading in the recesses and spraying white from above to provide better "under shading". The higher surfaces will be brighter, the recesses and lower surfaces will be darker.

disclaimer: not the best painter ; p

Short answer is yes.

Most of the acrylic paints we work with are at least semi transparent. The primer colour will affect the hue of any layers above it. Usualy its a matter of taste, sometimes about better coverage.

 heartserenade wrote:
Yes it matters because it could be used as a base coat. Of course, if you put enough layers of paint you can cover the primer entirely... but also cover up the details of the model.

Brown would be okay if, say, you're aiming for a rusty metal color or gold. I imagine you have to cover it with black paint first before you paint silver metallics on it, though. So my answer would be yeah, it's possible but it'll add another step and not entirely optimal.

I'd assume that the brown would also give an aged look to other colors, like silver or red, if you don't cover it with black first?

An informative thread.

 Hive Fleet Cerberus wrote:

 heartserenade wrote:
Yes it matters because it could be used as a base coat. Of course, if you put enough layers of paint you can cover the primer entirely... but also cover up the details of the model.

Brown would be okay if, say, you're aiming for a rusty metal color or gold. I imagine you have to cover it with black paint first before you paint silver metallics on it, though. So my answer would be yeah, it's possible but it'll add another step and not entirely optimal.

I'd assume that the brown would also give an aged look to other colors, like silver or red, if you don't cover it with black first?

Might make the silver look rusty. I have never tried it before personally so I don't know, but you can give it a shot with a test piece first. With red, it just looks normal. Usually the basecoats of my reds are either violets or browns/reddish browns.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/618175.page

It should only matter if you're using your primer coat also as an initial base colour. Generally, primer that's used exclusively for the purpose of preparing a surface for paint, the colour has zero impact/importance. That's why the classic primer colour is straight up grey - completely colour neutral. Black, white and grey are all used to provide a shade or tone for the finish, without determining colour characteristics.

Of course, all that goes out the window with the introduction of coloured primers. But they exist as a 2-in-1 step for priming and basecoating your surface. I suppose technically you could use a coloured primer just for the priming property if you plan to basecoat in a different colour. For example, you could colour prime a model brown, and then basecoat in whatever... but that would add in steps, not remove them. At the end of the day primer is primer, but it is nice to have the option to combine it with basecoating.

Primer color matters both for tabletop quality and display quality models, because it determines how many basecoat layers you need to create opacity.

On tabletop quality, many models such as Space Marines will simply be a lot quicker to paint, if you start off with a tinted primer that's similar in color to your basecoat (or if you just accept the tinted primer color, like Wolf Grey from AP for Space Wolves). Just how much work you want to make for yourself -- if you want to paint a model taxi-cab yellow or snow white, why start with a black primer?

For a competition or display quality model, you must consider that every layer of paint adds thickness, and the more layers you have, the more you're likely to obscure fine details, and the more a possibility for brush strokes or undesirable artifacts (like grit) that is picked up. Also, more layers of paint will dull sharp corners on small crevices, turning hard corners into rounded edges. On smooth areas, the more layers you add, the more likely one of them won't dry completely flat, which is unpleasing to look at, difficult to cover up (without stripping or sanding), and detrimental to wet blending efforts.

Finally, there is the color of the bare model. Never prime with a color that is very close to the model, because you won't be able to easily see what kind of coverage you gave. This is especially true of plastic models, like grey for Dark Vengeance, or red for Space Hulk terminators. For the SH Blood Angels, for example, which come on a pure red plastic sprue, I gave a very light grey primer coat, then a second, slightly heavier, red primer coat (that's ironically exactly the same as the plastic color).