Way of the Lazy Painter: Primer

This is the first in a series of articles on basic painting methods. We'll be discussing priming today, what it is, why you need to do it and more importantly how to do it. The end of this will also have a demonstration video showing how I do my priming.

What is priming?

Priming is the process of applying a thin coat on your miniature to give your acrylic paints a better surface to bond to.

Why do I need to do it?

There are two major reasons why you should place a primer on your miniatures. First as I mention above it gives your paint a better surface to bond to, this means that once your done painting your miniature the paint won't just chip off when you touch it. Second reason to primer is that depending on the color of your primer, it make painting easier. This second reason should be discussed in detail in a the later post, so just use this guide to know what color of primer to use. Miniatures that wear a lot of metal(armor, weapons, etc) primer with black, if it wears a lot of cloth(cloaks and the like) primer with white/grey.



How do you apply primer?

The how part depends on the kind of primer you will use, there are two kinds you see.

• Spray
• Brushed

Spray primers come in aerosol cans like spray paints, actually the primer I use is actually a spray paint but not all of them are. The brushed primer are applied to the miniature with a brush, I don't use these. Now the reason I prefer spray primers over brushed primers is that:

• Spray is faster
• Spray coats more evenly
• Spray is easier to do

Now, there is a reason why others prefer to use brushed primer, mainly:

• Can be done in an enclosed space

Well that's actually the only reason I can think of, if you use brush primers and know another advantage just leave a comment below and I'll be sure to add it.

So HOW do you apply primer?

Alright, alright, I'll get to it then. I'll only be discussing spray primers since its what I use and what I'm comfortable using. You'll need a few things to primer your miniature with a spray primer mainly:

• Primer (I use an acrylic spray paint brand called Bosney)
• Something to mount your miniature on (I use empty bottles with a flat cap)
• Blu-Tac or Masking Tape (This is to hold your miniature to the mount while you primer)
• An open space where you can spray without suffocating

One you have this you first need to mount your miniature.

Now you take your spray can and shake it, DO NOT SKIP THE SHAKING! The reason its so important to shake the can is so that your primer comes out as a mist, not as globs. Mists of primer coat nice an even and will prevent you from "drowning" the model's detail. Globs of paint will surly "drown" the detail of your miniature, let me explain before we proceed.

You miniature has details in it that are shown as raised or recessed areas, when you "drown" a miniature a large amount of paint/primer gets into these details. Now when the paint/primer dries the surface that holds these details can become flat. Hence the lost of details.

Now after shaking the can for a good minute or two, you can start priming your miniature. The way to do this is to take the miniature on one hand, point the can to the left of the miniature about a foot away from the miniature  spray then in a fluid motion move the spray over your miniature and keep moving until the spray goes past your miniature then release. You'll repeat this process on all the sides of your miniature. Don't forget to spray on the top of your miniature as well. Keep doing this until you've cover your entire miniature with the primer.

Notice: Be careful of how much primer you put in the miniature, too much will drown the miniature. Its better to get little primer on the miniature than too much, when you put too little you can just let the primer dry and apply more when it does. When you drown your model the only way to recover it is by stripping the primer.

Check out the video below to see a demo of how I prime my minatures