Painting With Primer

I think it's been a while since I showed you an example of "Primer Painting" as I like to call it.

Normally, I would be mixing in regular paint with my primers, but that's starting to change as more companies produce primers that have a color to them.

In this instance, I will show how you could use the new Badger Airbrush series of primers to do this will all primer.

There are many additional benefits to this, as all primer on the first few layers of your painting will make metal figures in particular more resistant to the dreaded Silver Curse!

I had already painted on a layer of red and black primer mixed together for the "Red Lead" primer.

I started mixing some of the green and black together for the underside of the main hull...

Since this is not seen all that often, these layers of "Primer Paint" would be the sole application in this area.

For the various camo shades, I mixed in some of the red and yellow.

Keep in mind that this is all part of the Shaded Basecoat technique, starting with middle tones and working lighter.  As you can see, I am focusing in on the tan/yellow part of the pattern.

Some of the green/black primer mix is now placed in between those layers of yellow.

At this stage, I began to mix in regular paint, which will start to beef up the saturation of the colors.

Most of the primer areas are still wet, so the 'real' paint is mixing in with it.

There is already a big difference in the tan areas, so the same concept was applied to the greens.

The green sections of the camo pattern are now brought up to the lightest lights.  From here, all these colors will be glazed, tinted and shaded to get some nice dark tones.

When I'm working on vehicles that have markings, I will add them in at this time so that they will also be tinted and shaded along with the rest of the vehicle.

A simple number and insignia will do the trick!

Stage one is complete!  This is the introduction to Primer Painting, made easier by the new waves of primer colors which are emerging.  I have also used Vallejo colored primers, which mix in very nicely with the Badger versions.

Next up, the glazing stage!  Stay tuned.