priming tutorials

NOTE: the guide to zenthiel priming tricks will be added here when it goes on the blog.

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Wednesday, 29 August 2012

battle of the primers! a guide(with zenithiel priming!)!

     hello :D
with white( zenthial)(note the helmet)

this is just a quick guide to primers and whether you should use white, black, both or eat your model (not recomended)
I am doing this guide as i think that a) you cant have enough guides on this and B) there are really not enough middle level painter guides out there. (i dont want GD quality but FFS i know blue paint makes the mini go blue!)


so firstly this is just between GW black and white. why?  because your either  not in america or like most of us you dont venture out of the GW blanket.( and it also covers zenithiel priming which is covered in a second.) you know? thats okay and the GW primers are actually CHEAPER than the humbrol/revel equivilants!
with black

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HOW TO PRIME: this is very simple :D simply stand a few foot away and always have the can moving in a horizontal line, in short quick bursts. and whilst it seems like a coat hardly does anything a few passes (swipes in a line) should give you a nice thin coat. (whilst keeping the can still and close to the model is tempting and easy you SHOULD NOT do it. as it obscures detail and uses a ton of paint!)

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so lets look at the 3 options black, white and zenithiel

PROS:

  • BLACK: easy to get a nice coat of spraypaint, covers hard to reach spots (this is really essiential if your model is assembled), good for a darker toned model (often more realistic)
  • WHITE: bright colours go really bright!, easy to get a even coverage of light colours.
  • ZENITHIEL:  pre-done shading (slightly), a good idea of light sources, easy to get a coverage of light colours, pre-done white, realistic, easy to airbrush afterwards.
CONS:
  • BLACK: hard to get a even coverage of light coulours on top of it, hard to get a nice bright colours on it with thin coats, dulled colours, occasional loss of detail, hard to pick out details.
  • WHITE: hard to get a nice coat of spraypaint,  unreachable areas that arnt shaded stick out a LOT, can make models really bright
  • ZENTHIEL: hard to do (requires practice).
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So looking at that it would seem that zentithial is the best, but how to zenithiel?!

well you firstly prime your entire model black (With quick passes in thin coats, as detailed above) then quickly have a few quick passes of white, but from a high angle above. be careful and you should get a result like this:

the superbright light adds a lot more shadows but you get the idea.
However zenithiel priming is not the end-all, for large batches of miniatures i still truly belive that black is the way to go!, likewise if you are airbrushing a tank fleet a white undercoat is better! but for models that you spend more than 5 mins on zenithil priming is the way to go! in a few days ill add a tutorial on how to make zenthiel priming almsot paint your models for you!

and that is it :)

also how do you all like the new font? i changed it as on some browsers the font changed!

-fuzz

p.s. i cant spell properly IRL, if you are too OCD you can copy this into MS word and spellcheck it yourself.