Two thin coats with regular paint?
Other than the time it takes, are there any other issues?
(cold & damp atm, not the best conditions for using sprays)
Not a great answer to your question, I know… but a cheap airbrush just for priming would help immensely! I live in Houston where 3/4 of the year, rattle cans are out of the question because of humidity. I primed everything now with my airbrush. A cheap one off Amazon would work just fine for it.
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@nscg4149 How do you handle ventilation?
This is more of a stop gap solution - so I’m not looking to get too much extra kit.
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if you’re going to brush on buy a primer rather than use paint, primer is made to key to a surface, regular paint you will eventually get the coverage but can easily rub it off as you handle it to paint.
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I’d agree - if you are going to prime use a proper primer. It isn’t standard acrilic paint by any stretch. Give it a day or two to fully cure as well if you go with the proper stuff.
I brush primed for years. It takes a lot of time and I always had issues with too much primer and bubbles forming which can badly disfigure a miniature.
I now rattle can everything. I think an air brush would be ideal - it would be my main reason for buying one.
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Thanks everyone, that’s useful information. I’ve only ever used spray cans but that’s tricky right now. Might just have to wait for an unseasonably mild day.
Scale75 holy charm primer has worked great for me in the winter, good coverage and consistency, comes in a large pot at a reasonable price.
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Thanks @scarletsquig. One video I watched said that it had a powdery finish, is that how you found it? Is that down to it being primer?
@nscg4149, @Gerrcinn, @Niall78 are there any brush on primers you’d recommend/had the most success with?
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@MarkG this is the best primer I’ve ever used/seen… I’ve hand brushed on primer, used rattle cans, everything. A nice quick airbrush of this stuff is insanely good, doesn’t clog details, anything
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Sorry, meant to add this last sentence… water this down just a bit and I’m positive it’d do great as a brush on as well!
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No real issue with undercoating by hand. It’s not ideal but gets the job done. I have no problem using GW base paints to do this.
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I use the Army Painter Brush-on primer sometimes, it’s OK, but I don’t know any other brush on, so - can’t compare.
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I used the white version of the Vallejo primer as a brush on for years and found it great. Buy the bigger 1/2 litre bottle for super value that will last years.
From experience you’ll need to be careful not to flood the mini with primer to avoid bubbles. Or brush off excess like with a varnish coat before you finish. Leave at least a day to cure.
It’s a good way of priming it just takes hours instead of the minutes it would take with a can or air brush.
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yup what people have said above I have vallejo for airbrushing but sometimes I’ll brush on for small areas or touch ups. Army Painter and GW’s smelly primer are okay, although I’ve not bought any GW paint in 20 years so not sure if the modern version is the same
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Right, I’m convinced - going to go for the Vallejo. Looked like it worked well in some Youtube videos as well. And the 200ml bottles seem a reasonable price.
I’ll just have to suck up the extra preparation time for the convenience of being able to prime minis whenever. Won’t be using it for masses of infantry though.
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I also use the Vallejo 200ml pot pictured above for black primer (and black paint), works great. The Vallejo white just didn’t have the coverage I wanted so I eventually settled on scale75, if it’s grainy I haven’t noticed it yet, any variety of spray would certainly be grainer.
Especially army painter white spray, avoid that above all else, I still need to get around to stripping a basilean Armada fleet it sandblasted (perfect humidity, temp, application etc. while spraying - it just sucks).
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True!