What luck have you had directly painting the models straight out of the box, no washing, over the Pre-primer color?

I'm especially interested to hear from folks who've had theirs and been playing with them for a while now. I have bought the Premium models whenever I've had spare cash on hand, but didn't worry too much about it for DT. Now that DW is out, I'm finding I am behind in purchasing the Premium models and I went a tad extravagant on the wife's Mother's Day gift this year, so I don't foresee replacing my unpainted Core sets (Blue Thunder & Revised) any time soon. Plus, I finally realize I need Spec Ops teams and more than one unit of Gorillas. I'd like to differentiate between the Gorillas in a Markus platoon.

I did have a little problem with a Pz I, where some of my paint retracted, leaving a little grey patch. Easily fixed, though. Aside from that, I've been having no problems painting directly over the basic primer. I use a farrago of basic acrylic paints, including colors bought at Walmart, GW colors, Tamiya acrylics (the only water-soluable paints I know of that have a flammable warning, since they're alcohol-based), and a few odd-balls (I even have Armory colors left over - using them a lot, since I have a WWII American set).

The trick is to apply a clear fixative coat. I use normal clear acrylic spray, bought wherever I could find it (about 20 months ago, dollar-store primer and clear up and disappeared. I have no idea why). This does leave the models gleaming and glossy. Thus, a secondary coat of clear flat is sprayed on. Any train modelling store has at least one kind of this clear spray. It goes for about $5 for a little can, but all you're doing is a quick, slight spray to dull the major fixative. Viola! I have models that look good, don't shine (unless I want them to - Sigrid von Thaler's black cat-suit I recoated with brushed-on clear Tamiya lacquer), and, most importantly, the paint doesn't rub off. That's the major rub (pun intended) of acrylics: It will rub off with handling if you don't hit it with a fixative.

My Axis are the base colour plus a dabble of another shade of grey, all works and sticks fine to me and they have had a lot of handling, no chips or wear yet.

That fixative is also a good surface on which to apply new decals if you need to.

Direct application of decals to a matt primer usually leaves the unattractive 'silvery' edge of the decal film.

Excellent point with the decals. I also like to apply another coat of fixative (and then dull-coat) atop the decals, the better to secure them.

The base primer has given grea results for me, unless i was trying to paint white but that is expected with a dark primer. Also if you have handled the models alot before painting wash them with soap and water before you paint to get the skin oils off them first.

Straight out of the package they have been great. I'm painting up my sigrid now and I'm getting good coverage just putting paint straight from the bottle or thinned down.

Im using P3 paints which do have a high pigment count so light colors do show up faster than some other paints. With the soft plastic I wouldn't use the cheap craft paints. Probably best to use something more professional and thin it down and you won't get that shrinkage effect. Nonmetal metals are going to look better here on weapons and such as well. Save metallics for the scratches and dents of battled scars. I'll post up my Sigrid tonight after I'm done.

And then rinse the soap off.

Harliquine said:

Look forward to seeing her, as she is one I didn't get Premium, and I too use P3 paints.

The primer coat doesn't take certain paints well, GW Foundations (or whatever the new ones are) work great. For other paints, use a Matte Coat first.

GW foundation paints are high pigment count as well. This could be a going trend. It's a very thin primer they used but not rough or porous so I don't know why it would soak up paint unless the primer wasn't complete or if the primer is mixed into the plastic during the casting process. Then much like resin it would get runny or soak up into the material.

Also as an aside P3 great coat grey is as close a match as you are probably going to get for the axis grey primer. I thought it would darken up the uniform for me but it just made it look like shiny primer. I'm a few washes in though so its looking better.

Remember to spray seal them with Testors Glosscoat followed by Dullcoat, or a similar brand, when painting is complete.

I've bounced them off the floor by accident many times as well as handled them during matches and they are still blemish free.

No problem with painting directly on it . I just washed and weathered for my Americans .