Miniature painting tips: Primer

                                                                 

We were asked for more painting tips so we sat down with our designer, David Heathfield (Golden Demon Winner & Ex 'Eavy Metal) to give us some of his top tips.

Let's start at the very beginning and talk about priming your models. Firstly, using spray primer (either black, white, grey or other colours) is a much better way to prepare a model, than painting or airbrushing the undercoat on. The spray primer is designed and statically charged to give the best adherence and finish to your model.

If you have trouble with paint adhering then it may be that the figure is not clean. A quick scrub under warm water with some washing up liquid (dish soap) and an old toothbrush, followed by  thorough drying should do the job.

When it comes to priming there are several things you can do to reduce the chance of it going wrong.

• Mount the figure onto something such as an old paint pot so that you don't handle it. 
• Keep your can of spray at room temperature (or the temperature recommended by the manufacture) and try to spray somewhere that its warm and dry, avoiding damp, or especially cold and hot areas.
• Be sure to give the can a good shake before use, especially if its been left in the cold or has been sat still for a long period of time. 
• Hold the can roughly 30cm from the figure and rotate the figure using short bursts of spray, making sure you spray from underneath, around the sides and from above, but avoiding areas that you have already sprayed.
• Don't overload your figure with spray, use two lighter coats if needed letting each coat dry completely. 
• You should leave the figure to dry in a warm dry atmosphere, avoid damp and cold conditions.
• If needed leave the figure for a few minutes before lightly drying under a hair drier. If you use a hair drier right away it can cause the outer layer of spray to dry causing a layer of skin to form effecting the drying process.   

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