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  • #80129
    Avatar photoWhirlwind
    Participant

    Which paint and painting techniques do you use for basecoating?

    And for those of you who don’t use spray paints, what are the best paints and techniques for applying basecoats by hand?

    #80131
    Avatar photoNot Connard Sage
    Participant

    Just so we’re clear.

    Basecoat, or primer? They ain’t synonymous. 🙂

     

    Obvious contrarian and passive aggressive old prat, who is taken far too seriously by some and not seriously enough by others.

    #80132
    Avatar photoMr. Average
    Participant

    To answer both what you did and did not ask, I prime with Krylon flat white spray primer.  I find it gives me the best and most solid surface for paint to adhere to.  I basecoat with whatever my “shadow” color is going to be, usually a deeper version of my main/highlight colors, which I thin down with acrylic medium so it’s kind of more like a very thick wash.  I try to be careful not to fill in details so a nice, absorbent brush is handy for this, to clear off the excess.

    #80142
    Avatar photoWhirlwind
    Participant

    Just so we’re clear. Basecoat, or primer? They ain’t synonymous. 🙂

    Sorry – Primer. I don’t often use a basecoat which isn’t a primer.  Black for metal armour if I used a white or light grey primer maybe.  But yes, primer.

    #80147
    Avatar photoNot Connard Sage
    Participant

    I use Halfrauds grey automotive spray primer. Ordinary, not the high build stuff.

     

    Obvious contrarian and passive aggressive old prat, who is taken far too seriously by some and not seriously enough by others.

    #80149
    Avatar photojagannath
    Member

    I’m a brush on primer guy – I use Liquitex Gesso, strictly – have done for a long time. Cheap gesso doesn’t work well, in my experience it’s important to use high quality liquitex.

    Black is fantastic – grey is a little thin and work much better after 2 coats, otherwise it can wrinkle under a wash. White is good but slightly transparent (don’t matter massively if you apply good, solid basecoats. I wouldn’t dream of using another brush on – it does need leaving 24 hours though, so occasionally if I particularly want to paint something I’ll use a spray.

    #80151
    Avatar photoRhoderic
    Member

    FWIW, I’ve been guilty of using the word “basecoat” incorrectly from time to time – usually because I meant to say “undercoat”.

    Properly, I prime/undercoat with white gesso (Liquitex) because I’ve given up on outdoors-use spray products altogether (I just find them too inconvenient and downright ornery, to the point where my former reliance on them became a constant hindrance to actually getting on with the hobby). I use an old size 4 brush to apply a fairly thin layer of undiluted gesso. A little goes a long way, and unlike some other gesso users I don’t subscribe to the notion that even thick layers of the stuff will shrink very thin as it dries. My primer/undercoat never doubles as my basecoat on any part of any figure, model or terrain piece I paint. It all gets painted over with separate basecoats, “blocked in”.

    #80153
    Avatar photocmnash
    Participant

    I use Halfrauds grey automotive spray primer. Ordinary, not the high build stuff.

    🙂 – Halfrauds 🙂

    Me too

    .

    #80155
    Avatar photoIvan Sorensen
    Participant

    Black spray primer for me.

    If I’m out, I’ll use thinned down paint. I have occasionally primed in grey for smaller figures.

    #80156
    Avatar photoMike
    Keymaster

    I like a nice medium flavoured undercoat, not so dark it mutes the colours and not so light they look garish.
    Humbrol no 29 brown spray.
    Not too thin as to be useless and not so thick it clogs up details.

    #80158
    Avatar photoMcKinstry
    Participant

    I use mostly white or light gray primer. Since most of my painting is smaller size figures such as 3-10mm land and 1/200-1/6000 naval, I feel the need to keep the primer as light as possible as it just seems to show better than on a dark base.

    The tree of Life is self pruning.

    #80163
    Avatar photoNorm S
    Participant

    Hammerite Special Metal Primer for metals

    Vallejo Black poly primer for plastics

    #80165
    Avatar photowillz
    Participant

    Acrylic car spray primmer grey, black and white, depending on the figure or period.

    #80171
    Avatar photoMike Headden
    Participant

    Car spray, hobby spray, paint on, thinned paint, black, white, grey, brown, red, blue – each of these words applies to at least one basecoat I’ve done. 🙂

    There are 100 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who can work from incomplete data

    #80180

    A variety of sprays ….Tamiya , army painter and dulux.  Am switching to vallejo brushed on for a bit as last sprays have failed and resulted in tacky goop that needed dettol removal.

    #80181
    Avatar photokyoteblue
    Participant

    Flat black spray paint.

    #80215
    Avatar photoOldNick
    Participant

    Black Liquitex Gesso with a big old brush.  After it dries I dry brush white.  That way raised edges are lighter and foods are darker.  Works for me!

    #80242
    Avatar photovexillia
    Participant

     

    B&Q Special metals primer for me now that I can’t get the International Paints version anymore.

    #80264
    Avatar photoRhoderic
    Member

    Say, Martin (Vexilia), I followed a link from your blog post to an older post of yours, in which you make a point of distinguishing primers from undercoats. Are you using “undercoat” interchangeably with “basecoat” (by which I mean the lowest layer of paint that will be visible on a finished paintjob, i.e. the “blocking in” layer onto which potential highlights and washes are applied) or are you using a tripartite classification of primer, undercoat and basecoat?

    #80266
    Avatar photovexillia
    Participant

    … or are you using a tripartite classification of primer, undercoat and base coat?

    This one.

    For the  avoidance of doubt my method is grey primer, black undercoat, colour (blocking) finished with any highlights.  All bar the primer will be visible on the finished model to a greater or lesser extent.  Like this:

    #80292
    Avatar photoUsagitsuki
    Participant

    Humbrol enamel matt black, thinned a bit, and brushed on with a Humbrol (coincidentally) size 4.

    #80304
    Avatar photoDeleted User
    Member

    Vallejo white primer, brushed on. I used to use the excellent Krylon matte spray mentioned above but probably because I’m a ham fisted troglodyte, I could never easily get a complete and even coat.

    As I mainly paint 1/72 plastics, the primer is important to stop paint flaking. Both of the above options are 100% effective.

     

    Donald (still in Japan but leaving tomorrow).

     

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