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I have started to paint my Dark Angel Marines and was wondering if the Citadel Base paint is a primer or not? I worry that after priming my model and then using the base coat color I might lose some detail (if any), and what the dangers might be if I use the base color without a primer coat.

Primer helps acrylic paint adhere to the plastic, resin or metal mini. It's absolutely mandatory.

Base paint is only a thicker acrylic paint, compared to layer or shade consistencies in the Citadel range.

Danger is the paint won't stick either when applying the paint or when handling it while painting it.
Useless you go ott with the primer then you shouldn't loose detail. I use a rattle can & have no issues.
If you're really worried then you could airbrush on both the primer & base coats but you sound like you're fairly new to the hobby so you shouldn't worry about it.
You can get coloured primers as well so instead of using the 'thick' GW base paint you could either dilute the base paint or use a 'layer' paint instead.

I use The Fang as a Primer and Base paint for my Space Wolves, and I have had no issues at all with my paint holding.

I sprayed some Dark Angles from the last 40K box set using the Army Painter spray primer range (Angel Green I think) and again had no problems.

I moved from rattlecan primer to Badger Stylnrez about 2 years ago. World of difference, the Badger stuff goes on incredibly thin.

 techsoldaten wrote:
I moved from rattlecan primer to Badger Stylnrez about 2 years ago. World of difference, the Badger stuff goes on incredibly thin.

Is that through an airbrush or applied by brush?

 Stephanius wrote:
Primer helps acrylic paint adhere to the plastic, resin or metal mini. It's absolutely mandatory.

Base paint is only a thicker acrylic paint, compared to layer or shade consistencies in the Citadel range.

I would call Base paints "more opaque" rather than "thicker." They're more densely pigmented to cover in fewer coats.

Does anyone actually have any stories About not using primers?

Or images when and how does it effect the mini?

The Allfather wrote:
Does anyone actually have any stories About not using primers?

Or images when and how does it effect the mini?

Yes have the perfect story for you.


I have 5 rhinos and 30 troops i base painted with 3 thin coats. Every thing looked incredibly good. But im a noob and didn't realise primer needed to be used first, so i stripped every thing but let me tell you, compared to other things i have stripped, these were incredibly hard to strip, i seriously thought mabey the base paint was some sort of primer.

heres some pictures of 2 tanks i painted only with base citadel paint, no primer at all.


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Btw every thing was painted using a paint brush.


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They could mabey have used another coat of base, but iv stripped them since these pictures.


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The only negative is i could scratch paint off, but i seriously had to use a bit of force to do so.


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Of course if you varnish it or what ever its called then i guess they would be scratch proof perhaps.

Primer as mentioned helps the paint to stick and gives an even surface for the paint to stick to so that the finish can be consistent, combined with a varnish or laquer to finish off your models can be very durable to handling and knocks.

The coloured sprays from GW and Army Painter both offer options for having a primer that is in the main colour you want or close to it.

The Citadel "Base Paints" tend to be both thicker and more heavily pigmented, in the words of Duncan "two thin coats" although ideal go even thinner and do more coats and you'll get less streaking in the finish you achieve.

The GW process of BASE -> SHADE -> LAYER is a reasonable way to learn but there's definitely more to do once you get this process sussed.

Rik

I’m not afraid to say this but back in the 90’s if I had bought a blister pack, I and many others would apply colour straight to the metal, it never faded due to handling for some reason but the paint was better then.

I have recently primed a few models for the unofficial paint comp using nearly 10y/o chaos black spray, then base coat and what not, no loss of detail.

If you water down the paint it will go on nice and thin, that mean not using it straight out of the pot unless you water the whole pot down

 ColonelDSanders wrote:
I have started to paint my Dark Angel Marines and was wondering if the Citadel Base paint is a primer or not? I worry that after priming my model and then using the base coat color I might lose some detail (if any), and what the dangers might be if I use the base color without a primer coat.

Citadel Base paint is not a primer, but a paint you can thin and add for an even covering.

If you use a spray primer you should never lose detail for your first coat of paint unless you over spray several times, or you apply too thick a layer of basecoat.

Less is always better when painting.

If you are going to add shadows and highlights you are going to show-off the details anyways.

My two cents, hope it helps.

Cheers,

CB

Citadel Caliban Green Spray is a colored spray primer... which both primes and basecoats the model. Very nice for DA armies (as well as the Necron box color scheme).

SG

Yep, I'm using the Macragge Blue spray for my Ultramarines.

This is going to be one of those questions where nearly every person you ask has a different answer - I think largely because whatever method you take will tend to work and generally the durability of your paint finish due to how you primed the model isn't going to be an issue that you encounter.

I prefer to start off with something that is very definitively a primer (I'm not sure quite how far to trust those coloured sprays from miniature paint companies that call themselves a primer and colour basecoat all in one). So I prime with a grey auto primer, then if I'm using a coloured spray I'll give the model a coat of that after allowing the auto primer a day to cure.

Probably over the top, but I prefer to do it that way.