Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I bought some models off a friend who never finished them. Half of them are fully painted (which im stripping), the other half is just primed once over. If I were to prime over that colour, would it be fine, or lose too much detail? The reason Im even re-spraying is because its black, and I want it white. You can only guess how painting white over black will work out.

Id say it depends on how thick the primers used are. If the detail looks good and your primer is a thin primer then it should be fine. If its thick no, strip em all and be done with it

You have to decide that for yourself. Spray one of them and see how it goes and if it loses too much detail for your liking, strip them all.

Make sure you spray several thin coats, don't try and get them white in one pass, it might take 5 or 6 quick passes waiting a few seconds in between for them to tack so you don't flood the details.

I bought a bunch of 2nd hand Tyranids that were primed black and I wanted them white, I just sprayed straight over the top of the black and IMO worked fine. I doubt anyone but me could tell the difference between ones I resprayed and ones I didn't, and that's only because I remember which ones were which not so much because the detail looks any different

But they are only painted to my table top quality and the black primer they came in was done relatively thin, if I were painting them for a display shelf I'd probably take the time to strip them (actually I wouldn't even bother buying them 2nd hand in the first place if I were intended to paint them for my display shelf).

It might be a little easier to do a quick once over with a grey prime, just to break up the black and then white so you dont have to do so many passes.

I've gone from black to white with primers before and going grey to white is a little easier.

If the model has fine detail I'd strip them to be honest, will make your life easier.

 Maddok_Death wrote:
It might be a little easier to do a quick once over with a grey prime, just to break up the black and then white so you dont have to do so many passes.

I've gone from black to white with primers before and going grey to white is a little easier.

I've not really found the same but I guess it depends what paints you're using. Just don't expect the first couple of passes of white to look good and the overall number of layers ends up being the same whether you go black -> white or black -> grey -> white. At least that's what I've found.

Hairy brushing is different because white is often a chalky colour to paint, so having to hairy brush 5 layers of white over black is likely going to be a bigger pain in the arse than doing 2 to 3 layers of grey followed by 2 to 3 layers of white. But the chalkiness of white paint isn't as much a problem when rattle canning it.

If the model has fine detail I'd strip them to be honest, will make your life easier.

I've always found after stripping plastic or resin models the details look a bit softer than a brand new model anyway. That and the hassle of it. So I avoid stripping if at all possible,