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Hello all,
Just want your expertise on primer and light color. I want to start a Imperial fist army using the primaris I have in stock and would like them to not be too dark a yellow. So I was looking at using the new constrat paint Iyanden Yellow with some Dorn yellow dry brushing, all that over a white primer.

Problem is, my primaris are all primed black now. (Vallejo black using airsbrush). So I was wondering, If I were to reprime them using the Vallejo white, again with an airbrush, would the result be darker that a clean model prime with the same white promer, or the white primer will cover enough to be close to a non black primed model?

Thanks
Stephane

Yeah it will be darker. You'd need to prime grey then white, although that will affect your layers and possibly obscure detail. Stripping will be the best way to go. Alternatively, be prepared to spend more time layering your yellow over the top

I've tried the Vallejo white air brush primer and found it to be sub-par in general.

If you're going to use Contrast I highly recommend using the GW Wraithbone or Greyseer spray. Both of these lay nicely over black.

And just my $0.02 on using Iyanden Yellow for Imperial Fists... It does not look good to me at all. Test your paint recipe before committing 100% to make sure you're happy with it.

Take away... Don't play imperial fists.. Ever. Choose a cool faction, like world eaters.

I have no experience with contrast paints, but from what I have seen on example videos of imperial fists with contract paints, I would say that you would get more vibrant colors if you used standard mini acrylic paints. Contract paints are a very quick an easy way to get depth of color and shade with a single application of color. They're effective if you've got to paint literally a hundred Skaven. Unfortunately you will never get the same vivid tones with Contrast paints as you *could* with the more standard acrylics. For most painters, that isn't a problem, since un-targeted washes usually shift all of the vibrancy out of the colors anyway. GW models tend to be darker in color for this reason.

BUT I have painted an army of yellow Ironjawz, so I have a good bit of experience working with yellow. My first advice is that if you want a very well painted yellow army, prepare to turn it into a year-long project. I tried doing the best job I could on every 'Ardboy and ended up taking me a year to do 1000pts, and that was with effort. Out of the whole spectrum, yellow paint is the most difficult color to work with, especially if you want vibrant, eye-popping yellow. There are not many non-toxic options for vibrant yellow pigments and the ones that we see in acrylics come out quite transparent.

Now, that bieng said, let's say you didn't want to strip the black primer, and you were going to use standard mini acrylics.In that case, I would hit the model with one or two thin coats of a good white primer - it won't obscure the black underneath, but it will help shift the tone with a relatively thin coat of primer instead of a thicker base coat. After that, for your base coat, you can either hit it with a base paint of white and do several very thin layers of something like Flash Gitz yellow, or basecoat with something like Averland Sunset and then slowly value up to the tone you want. You're going to get different looks depending on the route you take. Yellow over white looks more vibrant but is less forgiving for even applications than slowly valuing up from a darker tan-ish base paint.

If you are going to strip the black, then you can either get a really bright white with primer and basecoat and then slowwwly apply thin coats of the shade of yellow you want. I have also seen a technique where one just applies a yellow wash over white to get the Ironjawz yellow look so if you're in a hurry and still what a bright yellow you can go that route.

The problem you're going to have with all of this is the application of many coats of paint, and you want to have as few thin coats as you can manage, since multiple coats will start to reduce surface detail and eventually start to look like a mess.

A word that no one mentions about contrast paints.

Contrast paints soften most underlying paints and paint brands, except the new Wraithbone, Grey Seer, etc.

I noted this on a dry palette with other fully dry old paints on them and the Contrast not only softened but actually dissolved the fully dry paints completely.

I found that, interesting.

If you have an airbrush and they're primed black, you're in a perfect position to do some zenithal priming.

Don't bother with white primer; just get some decent white airbrush paint and mist a few layers to build up color.

This will give the Contrast a realistic lighting effect for very little effort.

 catbarf wrote:
If you have an airbrush and they're primed black, you're in a perfect position to do some zenithal priming.

Don't bother with white primer; just get some decent white airbrush paint and mist a few layers to build up color.

This will give the Contrast a realistic lighting effect for very little effort.

This is also the case with spray primers too.
I always spray black then use white from an angle to create zenithal highlights.
Such a quick and easy thing to do and really rewarding.
Using contrasts over this just adds to it nicely.