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Hey guys, I've recently primed 30 boyz in Chaos Black but in hindsight I should've done them in the white GW Primer instead. Now, can I reprime them in white over the black to save time? Or should I just strip all 30 boyz with Purple Power? Thanks in advance.

If your primer was a very thin coat, and your next coat is also very thin, then you shouldn't loose too much detail.

Oh and check some of the hundreds of posts in other places on better spray primers (seriously, there is a thread on it weekly) there are MUCH better AND cheaper spray can primers out there.

If you are referring more to bonding than obscuring detail, yes you can primer over primer.

Best of luck!

If you spray the white from the right angel you can create a nice pre-shading effect that could enhance your painting.

An extra layer of primer cannot be better. How much worse it is depends on how thick the coats you applied are, so it might not be noticeable, or it could noticeably reduce detail. If you think it's thin enough and don't mind a possible reduction in detail, just spray over it. If that will bother you, you'd be better off stripping it.

I assume you don't have an airbrush? Black primer + white spray from above is a great way to highlight minis. You could do this with a white primer can still if you don't have an airbrush I guess, but you'll have less control.

No airbrush unfortunately. I would prefer to keep the majority of detail in as i'm painting the boyz with 95% washes. The coats in black I applied aren't overly thick, but not overly thin either. Pretty much a good once over, and then once again to get the grey spots left over.

I agree with the above poster. If you can spray a light coat you can sometimes get a nice shadow effect. This works better with airbrushes though since you have a lot more control over how much paint goes on.

I would just drop them in Purple Power the primer will come off easily since its just 1 coat and shouldnt take much work. I say this because you will probably end up overspraying the miniatures if you do double coats of primer.

Try it on one boy. If it turns out good do the rest. If not, strip it along with all the rest. My experience with white primer is that it really varies from brand to brand. Temperature and humidity have a big impact too. I have made it standard practice to always do a small test before spraying an entire unit. That being said I have successfully re-primed a unit before. Light coats are the best.

Yeah that may be the best idea... I don't need them to be squeaky clean of black primer, just enough so a nice layer of white can go over it and salvage the details.


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 Depraved wrote:
Try it on one boy. If it turns out good do the rest. If not, strip it along with all the rest. My experience with white primer is that it really varies from brand to brand. Temperature and humidity have a big impact too. I have made it standard practice to always do a small test before spraying an entire unit. That being said I have successfully re-primed a unit before. Light coats are the best.

Just a light coat of white over the black?

When I prime a model I always do several light coats. Not trying to cover the whole model at once. I will do a pass from the front... wait... do a pass from the back... wait... do a pass from the top.... repeat until I feel the model is well primed. If you do it this way you can stop at anytime if you feel you are going to lose detail.



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The only time I have ever lost detail due to primer is if I spray the whole model all at once. Even if I am re-Priming. But again I recommend trying it on one of your Boyz. You could also try stripping one of your boyz at the same time. If stripping goes well then you can go that route..

Perfect,Thank you guys so much.

Honestly, there just boyz and you'll probably have a ton more of them. I'd just go and respray them.

Very true, just going to respray. And what you mean... "just boyz?"

That's sexist!! /jk

Yeah, definitely try re-spraying one first and see if it looks fine detail wise. If so, go ahead and do the rest.

I have to insert the general "look into getting an airbrush" comment. If you're in the hobby for the long haul it'll save you money (airbrush primer so much cheaper than the GW primer cans I assume you use), give you thinner basecoats for better details, better control and open up a much wider variety of options for you. Not to mention being a lot of fun to use ; ) You can get a decent setup for ~$150, then later on pick up a better airbrush for another ~$60-$100 once you're comfortable and sure you want to continue on.

honestly, since theyre all black, you should take a wide flat brush and dry brush white on them. The deep grooves will stay back, everything else will go white. It makes detail pop out like nothing else, i stopped doing it because i save more time using colored primers to match the armor im painting (so i actually dont have to paint 40% of the model or so lol. all i do for the armor is wash and edge it)

Yeah, this is part of why I use black primer a lot more. Sometimes I'll prime white and wash black to get shading, others I'll prime black and airbrush OSL white, then pin wash. Both good techniques to have available. I still haven't mastered... or even really have a basic grasp of dry brushing. I really should work on that skill.

Well the reason for it is cause I've decided to paint in my orks in about 95% washes. It gives an amazing result, IF of course you've primed in white. I picked up some primer last night and i'll give it a go tonight or tomorrow and report back.

The airbrush I've given a lot of thought too... sounding like a better option everyday.

Yeah that didn't work at all. Made it look extremely blochy and thick in a lot of areas. Going to have to strip!....... the models that is.

Hahah ; ) Ahh well, to be expected. Have fun stripping!

How would you strip a large model with too much primer. Say a land raider. It seems like if you left it in long enough to loosen the paint, the glue would give way and it would crumble.

If you used superglue that could be a problem with some strippers, you'd have to reglue it. I don't think this is a problem with dettol. It also won't come apart if you used plastic glue which I use wherever possible.

 Yonan wrote:
If you used superglue that could be a problem with some strippers, you'd have to reglue it. I don't think this is a problem with dettol. It also won't come apart if you used plastic glue which I use wherever possible.

Thanks, I used plastic glue, but its one of the originals, I guess the metal parts will fall off, like the multimelta, assault cannons, and hurricane bolters.