"Pretty good technique for good basecoats for stormtroopers" Topic

I'm a gamer/modeler that usually will prime most of my models in black, for most rank and file armies in Warhammer and other fantasy, and some historicals. Black works great for a lot of rank and file for providing shading/outlining for the whole model.

However this year I finally began to venture into using other colors for spray priming and for basecoats, and it's really expanded my abilities and my level of painting.

Of course one of the obvious issues with black spray primer is that it's not a good color if you want to do a miniature with a lot of white because the black underneath will fight it and undermine the white or bright colors.

For Star Wars Legion, I was confronted with doing the very first mini. force in my life that was primarily white! Given that the original plastic was dark gray, I started out with a logical choice, white spray primer.

The white spray primer "broke" the dark gray tone and left the models a nice, light gray color. But they still were not white. I didn't want to use actual white model paint to brush on because details would begin to get clogged. So instead I turned to Vallejo white brush-on primer. This was perfect for a white basecoat because it's VERY thin, it's almost milky. I found that when I painted it over the white spray primer it completed the coverage perfectly!

So essentially I achieved a white basecoat by using two different types of white primer. I think this is pretty cool because the "old school me" would just paint them with paint in multiple coats to cover the gray which would kill detail.

I'm really pleased that I'm developing the skills to achieve different kinds of basecoats on minis. without resorting to glopping on paints.

Here's some pics side by side showing one stormtrooper with just the spray primer and the other one with the spray primer and the brush on primer over it for the final white finish:

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Here's another pic. showing the same thing with two larger groups of stormtroopers:

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I discovered something quite similar, when I painted my Imperial Assault stormtroopers. Like you, I would probably highlight up from gray. Instead, after watching Sorastro's Painting on Youtube, I learned you can essentially use your primer as your first coat.
Sorastro primes white, washes black, and then highlights up from there. It's a great technique and it achieves wonderful results. In my 3 decades of painting, I never thought to use primer as the basecoat.

Great job, Baranovich. Taking a break from dwarfs?

I'd have actually thought that the best primer for Stormtroopers would have been black due to the undersuit. White does tend to key quite well to black, but if you're trying to avoid painting the primary colour of the miniature on by hand then the priming white would be better.

@Angry Piper,

Thanks for positive feedback, much appreciated. Oh man yeah I discovered Sorastro as well, he's awesome! I'm definitely going to be watching his videos when I get to painting my other SWL stuff.

Yeah, I kind had a temporary burnout on fantasy. I always wanted to get into some kind of sci-fi game and WH 40k never really interested me. Then Star Wars Legion came out and my Star Wars obsession was revived! My dwarf army is completely done. I might eventually add like an airship model from MOM or Norba Miniatures to my dwarf army.

I've got five more Warhammer armies on deck, completely assembled and primed, about 500+ miniatures all told. Once I get my Star Wars stuff done I'll return to my fantasy stuff. I think I'm going to tackle orcs and Empire at the same time, paint a little of both.

@Paddy,

Yes, exactly that is what I'm trying to move beyond, which is actually brushing on a base color using full-strength miniatures paint.

The Vallejo brush on primer by itself would be horrible for trying to cover over dark gray plastic like these, you'd have to do probably four or five coats before it was actually a strong enough coverage.

The white spray primer for lack of a better term broke the strength of the gray plastic tone and enabled the brush on primer white to be pure.

I agree with you, my first thought was to do a black undercoat because the stormtroopers as you said have a black body suit under their armor. But then I realized all the hassles associated with achieving the primary white color of the armor. It's really a trade-off of course. Either you spray prime black and all the body suit stuff is done, or you spray prime white and take care of all the white armor first. Either way you're going to have to hand-paint some part of it!

Nice tutorial mentioned above:

YouTube link

Great results, but what a mess!

I started mine with a black undercoat, then applied grey followed by layers of white. Worked out but may have been more work then just starting white or gray and painting back in the black under suit.

Had more fun with the Rebel Troops and went with Endor "tie died" camo.

TomT

Thank goodness for Sorastro.I don't know if I would have been able to do those speeder bikes without his help.

I really like Vallejo's tinted primers! I use their platemail primer for all my base metals (chainmail, etc). Just a wash over that and it is done!

They have lots of colours for armour, but I use them for infantry (the German Green-Brown works awesome for British khaki, Dunkelgelb works wonders for WWII Russian uniform colour – especially after "dipping" in Strong Tone from Army Painter).