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Hi Dakka, been reading here for a while, decided it was time to join up!

I just purchased some army painter color primer (green and bone-white for my dark angels) and I have a few questions about it:

Does the colored primer act as my initial base-coat? If I prime some marines with the angels green, will I have to then go and paint OVER it with caliban green? I'm hoping this isnt the case.
Also, I have a few models that were painted several years ago that I would like to redo. I was thinking of just priming right over the existing paint (it's on fairly thin). Is this a good idea?

Thanks for your help!

Themarxsman wrote:
Does the colored primer act as my initial base-coat? If I prime some marines with the angels green, will I have to then go and paint OVER it with caliban green? I'm hoping this isnt the case.

Angel Green isn't an exact match for Caliban Green, although it's certainly close enough for gaming. If you want to do this, you must also buy Army Painter's 100% acrylic paint match.

BUT: AP colored primer has acceptable, but not fantastic adhesion for most paints. This means, if you try to paint white, yellow, or a brighter green (pretty much any brand) over AP primer, it will tend to bead up instead of spread evenly.

To avoid this you can do one of two things: either cover the whole model with an acrylic paint (like Caliban Green), or wash the entire model. I am not a fan of washing the entire model (for example with an AP quickshade or Nuln Oil), because of two factors. First, the model looks muddy doesn't have a crisp finish, accentuating unintentional recesses in the plastic or where a wash happens to settle. Second, perhaps more importantly, you now have a "darker than Angel Green" color on the model. If you have an errant brush stroke at any time, it's really hard to correct, because what color of paint is that? These two reasons are why I usually put on a thin coat of Caliban.

Themarxsman wrote:

Also, I have a few models that were painted several years ago that I would like to redo. I was thinking of just priming right over the existing paint (it's on fairly thin). Is this a good idea?

Thanks for your help!

It depends on how good you want your models to turn out.

Without question, you will lose details doing this, and more importantly, you will capture any imperfect brushstrokes from the previous paintjob, making a really nice looking result significantly more difficult. With many colors, you can get away with a little bit of lumpy (especially dark green). But, if you paint over it, you're likely to magnify it, especially with washes, and that kind of thing. Plus, on the fine details, like chest eagles visor lens, you will lose the crisp edges, which make it harder to paint neatly. Again, it depends on how good you want the finished result.

It really isn't a big deal to strip a model, so that is the course I would take.

Ok, good to know, thanks for the info. The model I was going to spray over is a rhino. I was thinking that it's mostly flat surfaces so it wouldn't matter too much if it has a few extra layers of paint. I'll look into stripping it though.

I would recommend priming black then using the green. If you miss a bit with the black you can easily touch it up. Then if you miss a bit with the green it'll look like a shadow - it's a perfect way of starting a paint job for 'table-top' standard.


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BTW I had painted this tank green (over a black primer) & just re-primed it with yellow ochre acrylic car primer before painting it:

I don't think it turned out too badly if I may say so myself.

If you look through the project logs in my sig you'll see a bunch of different Army Color primer-based armies. I'd usually use the prime coat as a base coat after cleaning it up a little bit and getting any spots I missed. Also, the Army Painter colors aren't an exact match for GW ones. Angel Green is very close to Caliban Green, but it isn't []quite[/i] there. I used Army Painter's own Angel Green bottled paint and it was a perfect match and made my DA easier to paint.

I think the response from Talys, while not wrong, is a tad heavy-handed and rigid. Re-spraying already painted models isn't guaranteed to clog detail - that's simply a risk to be considered. If the initial paint coats are thin and the subsequent paint coats are thin, there's little cause for worry. More paint is more paint, whether it comes off a brush or out of a can, and sufficiently thin, even coats allow for dozens of layers with little to no softening of surface detail.

Your eyes and a touch of common sense should tell you pretty quickly if a re-sprayed model is going to end up looking like a lumpy mess. Just strip it if you're concerned, but know that a poor stripping job (leaving obstinate paint adhered to all those PITA crevices) will leave steps in the new layer that would likely be more noticeable than slightly softened detail - especially on something as big and blocky as a Rhino.

 oadie wrote:
I think the response from Talys, while not wrong, is a tad heavy-handed and rigid.

I didn't mean to come off that way, and I apologize if I implied that there was something wrong with priming over a paintjob.

I quite literally meant what I wrote -- if good enough at 3 feet is your target quality, and there's nothing wrong with that, you can probably get away with respraying a model. If you're going to spend 10 or more hours on a model and you want it be your best effort though, the stripped model will give you a better starting point than the recovered one. The original quality of the Rhino paint job matters too, because if someone tried to paint a Rhino with only small brushes (and I've seen so many), the paint is so bumpy.

Anyhow, oadie is quite right that a lot of the crevices are a PITA to scrub out, and a vehicle is harder than a 25mm to just toss in a solution. I'd still get a cheap solvent like simply green or break fluid, though, and drop it in a pail, then scrub it with gloves and a fingernail brush.

At least be glad that it's a Rhino, and not a Dark Eldar Raider or Ravager

No worries Talys, you offered good advice, nothing wrong!


Thanks for all the replies everyone. Went ahead and primed over the rhino just to see what would happen. It turned out pretty well IMO. The angel green primer covered very nicely, and is textured enough to grab paint, but still pretty smooth for a basecoat i think.