Hey All,
I have primed the wizard's tower and as I was rubbing it out, I thought I could share some observations I have made regarding the use of primer.
I have left the pictures full size. I know this is irksome, but I want you to be able to see what I am talking about as clearly as possible.
In the shop, when we finish a piece of furniture with laquer we always "rub it out". When the first coat goes on there is invariably dust on the project regardless of how faithfully we wipe it down. In addition to dust there is what we call over-spray; when the material is atomised what doesn't land on the project begins to dry as it travels thru the air, however, it is still wet enough to stick to whatever it does land on. This is usually another part of the project being finished. This tendency leaves a grainy texture on the finished piece which subsequently needs to be rubbed out. This is usually done with a very fine grit sanding pad.
Very much the same thing happens to minis when you use spray primer. I first noticed this while painting a unit of knights. The pictures which follow will show you what I am talking about and give you some pointers for preventing a poor paint job before you even start!
This shot shows the upper tower primed black. The primer I use is flat Krylon. Obviously this looks glossy. That is because I have "scrubbed" it with a soft bristle toothbrush. This has done three things: removed trapped dust, removed over-spray, and, in the case of MDF, it has also helped to remove some of the fuzz resulting from the texturing. I can now clearly see the detail and have a smooth painting surface.
In this shot I have turned the tower to show you an area that has not been scrubbed. You can see that the detail is very muted. Remember that both surfaces are finished with the same flat black primer. The surface of the un-scrubbed area is just so rough and grainy (understand that that is a relative term) that the light is being diffused to give it a matte appearance.
A closer look.
Here are a couple of shields for my knights. One has been scrubbed while the other has not.
Here is a knight on which I noticed the problem of over-spray. To prime this model I just laid him on the board and sprayed away. After the front side was dry I turned him over and sprayed again. Here is what happens: The over-spray from spraying the back of the mini hits the board and bounces back up to stick to the front of the model. It is so dry by the time it reaches the front of the model that it just sticks there without "burning" into the previous finish. This results in a very grainy texture that shows up when you paint, especially with metalics. Hopefully you can see what I am trying to point out.
This is the back side of the same knight. This is the side that was primed last. See how noticeably smoother the paint job is! Some might be wondering why there is no over-spray on the back side from priming the front. There undoubtably was, however, it was thin enough that when a much thicker coat went on it "burned in" and smoothed out somewhat. Yet it is still not an optimal finish. This knight has not been scrubbed. In fact it was this knight that prompted me to try scrubbing the remaining minis with the soft toothbrush.
These two knights were primed and painted in the exact same way as the previous knight with the exception that they were scrubbed before painting. By the way, that's scrubbing with a dry toothbrush. Some of the graininess can still be seen, but it is much more subdued.
The backs of these knights looks even better after being scrubbed. Another advantage of scrubbing is that your inks flow out much better. A grainy surface just traps the ink and you end up with a dull grey armour rather than bright and shiny.
This is a picture of my knight champion with no, or very little, over-spray. Rather than laying him down on a board to prime him, I stuck him on the end of a stick that I could hold in the air and rotate as I sprayed. This way there was nothing for over-spray to bounce off of. I will still scrub him to achieve the best surface possible.
I really didn't think of the over-spray problem until I primed my knights. Most minis are standing on a base when I prime them, not laying down. However, based minis are still subject to over-spray, especially if you are doing a group. I now prime all my models on a wand (stick), and scrub them after they dry.
Perhaps all of you know this stuff already and I am just a little slow, or you have never had this problem to begin with. In any case, I just wanted to share some of these things if they had not occurred to you yet.
To the mods, feel free to delete this if you think it is a waste of space.
Marcus
