What Color Primer

[Joe]

I'm going to building a Soviet Mig and The base coat will be an acrylic light grey (aka aircraft grey). I am wondering what color primer I should use: Grey? White? Possibly black? I saw one of Paul's "On the Bench" shows and he mentioned he was thinking of using gloss black primer on all his planes. Has anybody else tried that?

Thanks mates! Cheers!

Joe

[Stokesy44]

Hey Joe

I guess it depends on what paint methodology you are going to use. If you're planning to pre-shade the panel lines then a light grey primer is perfect.

I have used black primer on my sci-fi kits as they have a lot of surface detail and a pre-shade isn't the way to go. Similarly, if its armour, a lot of people go for black as it creates depth (or weight) under the main coat. Its a brute of iron after all.

Personally, with aircraft, I go for a light primer and pre-shaded panel lines. It seems more subtle somehow and helps to create that stressed metal look, adding detail while not taking away from the sleekness of the aircraft.

Then there's post shading but I haven't worked out how to do that yet - Lol

[Backfire22]

What works for me: white primer on all painted aircraft, then pre shading
gloss black for non painted aircraft then I normally use Alclad II
grey primer for modern ships
tan primer for wooden ships and armor.

[RobertK]

If you are painting figures, brown is a good primer for flesh tones. Well, brown is great for any warm colour, if you for example use dunkelgelb on a tank a brown primer will look really good.
But, grey, white and black will generally work for everything. I mostly use black nowadays, because, well, I have alot of it