Priming

You walked into a Games Workshop or friendly local game store (a.k.a FLGS) and came away with a bag full of minis, maybe a few tools, probably some plastic glue. Getting them built was easy, now you want to paint them. This article is the first in a series that will get you started on your minipainting journey and help you avoid common pitfalls.

The first thing you need to do is prime you models. While priming is not 100% necessary, your finished paint job is going to be much more durable, not to mention easier to achieve, if you start with a good primer. Primers bond tightly to the plastic and create an extremely fine texture for the further layers of paint to bind to.

There are 3 main options when priming a model.

1. Spray paint

This is the most common way by far for beginners, and even many experienced painters, to prime their models. It's quick, though can be a little pricey. While many people swear by home improvement store brands like Rustoleum, my own experience has been that no matter how careful you are these produce a thicker layer of paint that can fill in and obscure file detail. By comparison, the spray paints designed for miniatures appear to produce a much finer layer that helps preserve detail. While Games Workshop's Citadel brand spray cans are expensive, there are other paint brands, for example Amy Painter, that can save you some cash.

Regardless of which brand you use, it's key to not apply too much. Too much paint will always obscure detail regardless of the brand. Spray in short bursts while sweeping across the model(s) from a distance.

Pitfall: Spray paint doesn't work well if it's too hot/cold or dry/humid. There's a wide middle ground of temperature and humidity where it'll work fine but if you're concerned, spray some leftover sprue and see how it comes out.

2. Brush on primers

Brush on primers come in a variety of options. There are purpose made miniature primers from companies like Vallejo and Games Workshop. There are also many people that use gesso, a primer  typically found in more traditional acrylic painting to prep canvas or wood boards. 

If you minipainting journey is its own reward, and you're focusing on painting individual miniatures to a high quality, brush on primers can be a great option, whether it's the weather, or lack of a good location for spray painting. If on the other hand your minipainting journey is in service of building an army for a game like Warhammer, brush on primers will become an annoying hurdle very quickly.

The only advice to be given regarding brush on primers is that they typically shouldn't be thinned in any way (read the products instructions obviously). Other than that, like any paint, attempt to apply them in a thin even layer.

3. Airbrush primers

An airbrushing setup, even a cheap one, is quite a bit of gear and requires an appropriate space to use. It's often an upgrade painters make after being in the hobby for a number of year. We'll discuss airbrushing in more detail in another article, for now lets simply focus on the use of an airbrush for priming.

There are a number of purpose made airbrush primers. Stynylrez from Badger, and a wide range in a variety of colours from Vallejo and others. Airbrush primers combine much of the speed of spray can priming, with the benefit of not being weather dependent. Additionally they make it easy to apply a uniform, thin layer.

Pitfall: Primers take time to cure, and this is true of airbrush primers more so than the other options. Paint being dry to the touch is not the same as paint having cured. It's a good practice to allow airbrush primers to cure overnight before beginning to paint the model. This ensures it bonds fully to the plastic below. The risk of handling or painting the model too soon after priming is that you end up wiping primer off, especially along sharp edges.

 In addition to these main priming methods, there's one more technique you can apply at this stage to really help you paint the model. That technique is called "zenithal priming." Typically we prime with a dark colour, often black. This works well to create dark recesses on the model, however it can be difficult the see the detail when the model is matte black. Additionally it requires more work to create natural looking top down lighting when painting the layers.

Left model is primed black. Right model is primed black followed by a white zenithal spray. The detail on the zenithal primed model is much easier to see.

 Zenithal priming adds a step to the priming process where we follow our initial layer of dark primer with a layer of a light colour (as a primer has already been applied, this light colour doesn't have to be a primer). The technique is most easily done with a spray can or airbrush, and the light paint is sprayed from an overhead angle, imagining the model is outside with the sun or other light source approximately overhead. A rough and ready version can also be achieved by dry brushing the light colour in a single direction, drawing the brush from the top of the model towards the bottom, and repeating this all over the figure.