Miniature Painting: Which Primer?

More to the point, what colour? Black, grey or white?

There are many people who swear by using a certain colour for their primer, and just as many who probably have never given any thought into it. In my (ahem..) quest for painting perfection, I have used all three, and settled on grey as my colour of choice, but I also know when to use the other colours.

Black will generally produce a much darker, grittier feel to a finished model, with colours on top being muted and not as bright. Black also creates a “auto shade” effect, where the recesses will be darkest on the model, usually enough to make you only push the highlights.

Grey produces the most realistic (in my opionion) colours. It still creates a little amount of auto shading, but also pushed highlights a little as well. It takes longer to work with, due to you having to go back and finish the shadows as well as the highlights when the base coats have been completed.

White will create the brightest finished model, and has a “auto highlight” effect. There will be very little shading on the model, so you will have to do and do these yourself, but the highlights will be very prominent from the start.

All three have their followers. Black I use when I am batch painting or speed painting, as it leave things like guns and parts you don’t paint black, and takes to a nice dry brush easily. Grey I use for one off models, such as character models. The paint takes well to the grey, and helps the model stand out a bit better when all the other models are on the table, due to you starting on a lighter base colour. (However, I am finding myself using grey a lot more for everything recently). White I very rarely, if ever use. I just don’t like how bright it makes the model, which to me is very unrealistic. I would only use white one something such as Eldar in WH40k, as these are very bright models when finished.

Here is a little example (excuse the extreme blur on the second photo... but it is only the colour we are looking at so I didn’t retake it.)

The first picture is just the base undercoats. The second is the models painted with a base coat of Mordian Blue foundation, mixed 1:1 with some game colour thinner. You can see the difference, black on the left, which is much darker with much more prominent shadows, and white on the left which, to me, the blue looks way to happy. The middle grey, is perfect to my eye, looks very close to what the paint in the pot looks like.

So there you have it. Use black for quick jobs, grey for everything else and white on special occasions. OK that just my opinion, but next time you reach for that can of spray primer, as yourself, are you using the right colour for the job?