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Hello all! I'm looking at painting my first army and was wondering about base coating my marines.
Since I am playing as black templars, my base coat will be black.
My question is, since the primary color of my marines will be solid black, could I just apply a basic spray paint over them?
I am totally new to the painting world of minis (and the painting world as a whole because I am pretty bad at this sort of thing), so I do not know if this is a good or bad idea.
Looking for some friendly advice!
Thanks!

Yes, you can.

The first paint to go on a model is primer. This is often in a spray can. You can get this in black.

BT have white shoulderpads - you will find the white easier if (after using black primer) you paint the pads a light grey - several thinner coats are better than one thick one. Then start building it up to white. Takes time.

Alternatively, leave the shoulder pads off, put them on cocktail sticks with a bit of blue-tack (stick that into a block of expanded polystyrene foam) then spray them with white primer before doing the trims in black,

Thank you winterdyne!

A good rule for black is it isn't really black. You want your darkest shadows to be black but the surface colors to be a very dark grey. Eshen grey I find works very well to build a little contrast against a black primer and give the model some depth.

Once you've primed your models with black, it's a good idea to go back over any areas you want black with some black paint (like Abaddon Black). It seems like a pointless exercise, but since primer will have a different finish to the paint from the pot, you'll thank yourself later when you make any mistakes, as patching those up without doing another coat of black by brush will leave a clear line between where you've corrected the mistake and where the primer is.

These two tutorials might assist you:



There is also a trick I know about using watered down Rhinox Hide to shade black areas, however you'll have to apply it like you would apply a recess shade, which can be quite tricky. Just be sure to take your time when trying anything new to you, and remember, thin those paints!

Hope this helps

G.A

I agree with General Annoyance, you should prime it in a black spray paint, but also put a layer of whatever color you will use for touch ups, since they don't normally match, and if you are like me, you will make mistakes and then it looks terrible with to different color blacks showing.

I had that issue painting my Raven Guard, so what I do is prime it with black primer, then do a airbrush layer using my reaper black that I will be painting with. Makes a big difference in my opinion.

Post some photos when you get one or two done, so we can see how you are progressing.

You could potentially treat the black primer as your black, the potential issues have mostly been covered.

- If you have to touch it up, the touched up paint will look different (however this is alleviated if you apply a wash to the model when all is finished or if you apply a varnish at the end, also if you simply don't bother touching up your models it's less of a problem).

- You might actually want a very dark grey rather than a pure black.

- Sometimes when you spray, the deep crevices don't get enough paint in them.

For my Night Goblins rank and file models (not the characters), pictured here:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/images-59981-39860_Orcs.html

I simply sprayed them with Tamiya flat black from a rattle can, I specifically chose Tamiya because it dries very thin and doesn't obscure detail, so I could lay down a few coats from different angles to make sure I wasn't missing any spots but also not losing detail.

From there I didn't bother repainting the black with a hairy brush, I just highlighted it with P3's greatcloak grey, then a medium grey, then gave a quick once over with a black wash.

They don't look awesome, they aren't going to win any competitions, but it was quick and looks good on the table (at least IMO), if I'd spent more time I might never have finished the army.

The characters I used the same method, I just spend a bit more time trying to blend the grey highlights so they look better when you zoom in on them.

There's a lot of different ways of painting black and some look better on some models and others look better on different models.

If I were personally painting Black Templars, I'd actually prime them white then mask the areas that are going to be white (shoulder pads, knee pads, icons) before spraying them with a black spray, just to save me having to paint white over black.